discourse that Herodotus not only told the thing which was not, but that he
did so wilfully, as one knowing the truth but concealing it. For example,
quoth he, 'Solon never went to see Croesus, as Herodotus avers; nor did those
about Xerxes ever dream dreams; but Herodotus, out of his abundant wickedness,
invented these things.

'Now behold,' he went on, 'how the curse of the Gods falls upon Herodotus. For
he pretends that he saw Cadmeian inscriptions at Thebes. Now I do not believe
there were any Cadmeian inscriptions there: therefore Herodotus is most
manifestly lying. Moreover, this Herodotus never speaks of Sophocles the
Athenian, and why not? Because he, being a child at school, did not learn
Sophocles by heart: for the tragedies of Sophocles could not have been learned
at school before they were written, nor can any man quote a poet whom he never
learned at school. Moreover, as all those about Herodotus knew Sophocles well,
he could not appear to them to be learned by showing that he knew what they
knew also.' Then I thought the priest was making game and sport, saying first
that Herodotus could know no poet whom he had not learned at school, and then
saying that all the men of his time well knew this poet, 'about whom everyone
was talking'. But the priest seemed not to know that Herodotus and Sophocles
were friends, which is proved by this, that Sophocles wrote an ode in praise
of Herodotus.

Then he went on, and though I were to write with a hundred hands (like
Briareus, of whom Homer makes mention) I could not tell you all the things
that the priest said against Herodotus, speaking truly, or not truly, or
sometimes correctly and sometimes not, as often befalls mortal men. For
Herodotus, he said, was chiefly concerned to steal the lore of those who came
before him, such as Hecataeus, and then to escape notice as having stolen it.
Also he said that, being himself cunning and deceitful, Herodotus was easily
beguiled by the cunning of others, and believed in things manifestly false,