But when a man assumes the attitude of mind that is proper to history, he is
bound to leave out of sight all such considerations, and he must often speak
well of his enemies and adorn them with the highest praises when the facts
demand this ; and again he must often blame his nearest friends, and bring
their faults home to them whenever their conduct requires it. For just as if
the eyes of a living animal are put out, the whole creature becomes maimed
and helpless, so if you take away the truth out of history, what is left is
merely an unprofitable tale." I repeat that if Xenophon had appeared to
Polybius (who was a man of much learning, dcTjp TroXu/xaS^s, as Aelian re-
marks, and a master of historical methods) so "to take away the truth out of
history " (and the modern indictment falls little short of that imputation),
we should have heard of it. We should also have heard of it from another
ancii^t critic,

LuciAN,

whose canons of history - writing, as laid down in the famous essay
Trffis Sei l<TTOplav avyypdipciv, show that he too was a master of historical
methods.^ "The occasion of the essay is the craze which seized the whole
world of Corinth to write histories of the Parthian war(A.D. 162-165): dXX'
A<p' oS 3^1 t4 ^i" iroal toOto KeKlv7)Tai, 7r6Xe/ios 6 irpbs toM ^appdpovs
Kal ri (v ' Kpiievlq. rpaO/ia Kai al ffwexeis vmai, oidcU SffTis oix laropiav
trvyypdipet ;noXXoi' 5^ QovKv5ldai Kal 'H/)45otoi Kal Heyo^fflcres ■^/iic
dirai/Tes (everybody must needs be a historian, or rather we are deluged with

1 The rules are none the less golden because, the essayist has chosen to give them so
humorous a setting. Indeed, " the historian Du Thou thought so much of this essay,
that he drew the rules for historical writing in the preface to his work principally from
it." — Thomas Dyer, article " Lucianus " in the £>ict. 0/ Biography.
