Even the language of Thucydides in these chapters shows phrases which we recognize in the fragments of Antiochus cited by Strabo. The prominence of Syracuse, the city of Antiochus, and the mention of the constitutions of the new cities, are also features pointing to the work of Antiochus. In his special article Busolt has shown with great acuteness that all the later authorities, cited by some in support of Thucydides' data, really rest upon him or upon Antiochus[64:2]. What was the character of this author? He was an early contemporary
of Herodotus, and is never cited by the ancients as a specimen of critical acumen, but rather as possessing special knowledge on an outlying part of the Greek world. We have, moreover, his opening words quoted by Dionysius of Halicarnassus[65:1], which are most important in the present connection: Ἀντίοχος Ξενοφάνεος τάδε συνέγραψε περὶ Ἰταλίης ἐκ τῶν ἀρχαίων λόγων τὰ πιστότατα καὶ σαφέστατα. In other words he used oral tradition for his facts, and this he also did in his account of early Sicily[65:2]. He was, at best, one of the most serious, if you please, of the logopoioi, or chroniclers, who are always being contrasted with critical historians such as Thucydides. Such being the state of the facts, we are compelled to accept as our only authority for the early traditions concerning Sicily this solitary chronicler, who seems to have had no difficulty in fixing dates centuries before the first immigration of the Greeks. In a loose thinker of this kind, patriotism may be fairly assigned as a strong moving cause in determining his facts and dates. Indeed, when Archias is said by this Antiochus to have aided at the founding of Croton, Grote and Holm are quite ready to set it down to his desire to magnify Syracuse. When Ephorus of Kyme sets down the Italian colony of his city (Cumæ) at 1050 B.C., all critical historians reject this date upon the same ground. If this criticism be indeed valid,
are we only to use it when we choose, or to apply it generally? Busolt shows (in his article) that the actual year of the founding of Syracuse (and hence of the other Sicilian colonies) cannot be regarded as certain. Surely he and his brother critics stop short illogically, and refrain from pushing their doubts as far as they are bound to do. To me not only the exact year, but the exact generation—it is by generations and round numbers that Antiochus counted—is quite uncertain; and we are thrown back on arguments from general probability such as those which I have indicated.
though supported by Thucydides,
who is not omniscient.
§ 31. It is the authority of Thucydides which has imposed upon the learned an artificial chronology. The scholar is often wanting in acuteness. There are, I suppose, plenty of philologers who believe Thucydides far more implicitly than their Bible, and because he appears careful and trustworthy in contemporary affairs, actually assume that he must be equally credible in matters wholly beyond his ken. I suppose they imagine, though they do not state it, that the historian consulted State archives in Sicily, and set down his conclusions from a careful analysis of their evidence. We have no trace or mention of any such systematic archives; and if the historian indeed confined himself to these, what shall we say to his assertion that the Sikels passed from Italy to Sicily just three hundred years before the advent of the Greeks? How could he know this? But the solemn manner of the man and his habitual reticence concerning his authorities
have wonderfully imposed upon the credulity of the learned.
Credulity in every sceptic.
Nobody rates Thucydides higher than I do, wherever he is really competent to give an unbiassed opinion. His accuracy is not, to my mind, impeached by the fact that he is found to have made a slovenly copy of a public document lately recovered on the Acropolis[67:1]. The variations, though many, are trifling, and do not affect the substance of the document. Yet this may do more to discredit him with the pedants than what seems to me dangerous credulity in larger questions. He is hardly to be blamed; no man escapes entirely from the prejudices of his age. The most sceptical in some points, as I have already noticed[67:2], let their credulity transpire in others. Sir George Cornewall Lewis, whose whole life was spent in framing sceptical arguments against early history, is found to accept the unity of authorship and unity of design of the Homeric poems. Grote, so careful and precise in accepting documents, subscribes to the genuineness of the Platonic Letters, which no other competent scholar admits; and so I suppose that in every sceptic, however advanced, some nook of belief will be found, often far less rational than the faith he has rejected.
Its probable occurrence in ancient critics.