(b) When Gelo promised to help the Greeks with twenty thousand land forces and two hundred decked ships,Gelo. See Herod. 7, 157-165, B.C. 481. if they would concede to him the chief command either by land or sea, they say that the congress of Greeks, sitting at Corinth, gave Gelo’s envoys a most spirited answer. They urged Gelo to come to their aid with his forces, and observed that the logic of facts would give the command to the bravest. This is not the language of men depending for succour on the Syracusans, as a last resource; but of men who felt confidence in themselves, and challenged all comers to a rivalry of courage and for the crown of valour. In spite of this, Timaeus spends such a wealth of rhetoric and earnestness on these points, in his desire to exalt the importance of Sicily above all the rest of Greece, to represent its history as the most splendid and glorious of all the world, its men as the wisest of all who have been great in philosophy, and the Syracusans as the most consummate and divine of statesmen, that he could scarcely be surpassed by the cleverest schoolboy declaimers when undertaking to prove such paradoxes as that “Thersites was an excellent man,” or “Penelope a bad wife,” or other thesis of that description.
(c) However, the only effect of such extravagant exaggeration is to bring ridicule upon the men and the transactions which it is his intention to champion; while he himself incurs the same discredit as ill-trained disputants in the Academy; some of whom, in their desire to embarrass their opponents on all subjects, possible or impossible alike, carry their paradoxical and sophistical arguments to such a length as to dispute whether it is possible for people at Athens to smell eggs cooking at Ephesus: and to offer to maintain that, while they are discussing these points, they are lying on their couches at home and carrying on a second discussion on other subjects. This extravagance of paradox has brought the whole school into such disrepute, that even reasonable discussions have lost credit with the world. And apart from their own futility, these persons have inspired our young men with so depraved a taste, that they pay no attention whatever to questions of ethics and politics, which bring benefit to those who study them; but spend their lives in pursuit of an empty reputation for useless and paradoxical verbiage.
(d) This is just the case with Timaeus and his imitators in history. Paradoxical and tenacious, he has dazzled the multitude by skill in words; and has forced attention to himself by a show of veracity, or has conciliated confidence by a pretence of producing proof of his assertions. The most conspicuous instances of his success in inspiring this confidence are those parts of his work which treat of colonies, founding of cities, and the relationships of nations. In these points he makes such a parade of minute accuracy, and inveighs so bitterly when refuting others, that people came to imagine that all other historians have been mere dreamers, and have spoken at random in describing the world; and that he is the only man who has made accurate investigations, and unravelled every history with intelligence.
(e) As a matter of fact, his books contain much that is sound, but also much that is false. Those, however, who have spent much time on his earlier books, in which the passages I have alluded to occur, when the confidence which they have fully given to his exaggerated professions is disturbed by some one pointing out that Timaeus is obnoxious to the same reproaches which he has brought with such bitterness against others (as, for instance, in the misstatements as to the Locrians, and other instances lately mentioned by me), become angry and obstinate in controversy, and difficult to convince. And that, I might almost say, is all the benefit which the most diligent students of his history get from their reading. While those who devote their attention to his speeches, and generally to the didactic part of his work, become pedantic, sophistical, and wholly insensible to truth, for reasons which I have already stated.
[27.] Moreover, when he comes to deal with facts in his history, we find a combination of all the faults which I have mentioned. The reason I will now proceed to state. It will not, perhaps, to most people seem to his credit, and it is in truth the real source of his errors. For whereas he is thought to have possessed great and wide knowledge, a faculty for historical inquiry, and extraordinary industry in the execution of his work, in certain cases he appears to have been the most ignorant and indolent person that ever called himself an historian. And the following considerations will prove it. Nature has bestowed on us two instruments of inquiry and research, hearing and sight. Cp. Herod. 1, 8. Hor. A. P. 180. Of these sight is, according to Heracleitus, by far the truer; for eyes are surer witnesses than ears. And of these channels of learning Timaeus has chosen the pleasanter and the worse; for he entirely refrained from looking at things with his own eyes, and devoted himself to learning by hearsay. But even the ear may be instructed in two ways, reading and answers to personal inquiries: and in the latter of these he was very indolent, as I have already shown. The reason of his preference for the other it is easy to divine. Study of documents involves no danger or fatigue, if one only takes care to lodge in a city rich in such records, or to have a library in one’s neighbourhood. You may then investigate any question while reclining on your couch, and compare the mistakes of former historians without any fatigue to yourself. But personal investigation demands great exertion and expense; though it is exceedingly advantageous, and in fact is the very corner-stone of history. This is evident from the writers of history themselves. Ephorus says, “if writers could only be present at the actual transactions, it would be far the best of all modes of learning.” Theopompus says, “the best military historian is he who has been present at the greatest number of battles; the best speech maker is he who has been engaged in most political contests.” The same might be said of the art of healing and of steering. Homer has spoken even more emphatically than these writers on this point. For when he wishes to describe what the man of light and leading should be, he introduces Odysseus in these words—
“Tell me, oh Muse, the man of many shifts
Who wandered far and wide.”
“And towns of many saw, and learnt their mind,
And suffered much in heart by land and sea.”