Dionysius and Livy, must suppose that Fabius Pictor and the other historians, from whom they derived this narrative, found in existence an authentic oral tradition of the event, and that in reducing it into writing they were assisted by some documentary materials which served to fix the outlines of the transaction.

The difference between the opposite opinions on this subject is therefore a difference of degree, rather than of principle. Nobody asserts that all history must be taken directly from the reports of percipient witnesses. No historian applies the strict rule of judicial evidence, that all hearsay reports are to be discarded. In treating of the period which precedes contemporary history, all persons admit traditionary, secondary, or hearsay evidence up to a certain point. The question is, where that point ought to be fixed. On the other hand, no historical canon is so lax as to admit every traditionary story which is the subject of popular belief. It will not now be maintained that because Eneas was believed by the Romans to have landed in Latium, and because Julius Cæsar was believed by them to be the descendant of his son Iulus, therefore these were historical facts; it will not be maintained that because the Athenians believed themselves to be a nation sprung from the earth, and thought that their great hero Theseus slew the Cretan Minotaur, therefore these were real occurrences. The adherents of the opposite views concur in holding some intermediate opinion. They concur in thinking that an event, unrecorded by contemporaries, may be handed down to posterity by a substantially faithful oral tradition. They believe that the memory of a time, of which there is no contemporary historian, is not of necessity lost, but may be partially recovered from the oral traditions of the immediately subsequent generations; especially if the tradition be fixed and assisted by official records, private documents, and poems. They differ however as to the extent to which the existence of a popular belief concerning a supposed matter of fact authorizes the inference that it grew out of authentic testimony, assumed to have been handed down by a faithful oral tradition,

or to have been derived from poems and records, long since lost, but accessible to the ancient historians.

Colonel Mure, who, in certain points, allows a considerable latitude to the province of authentic tradition before the commencement of contemporary history, thus defines his views on the subject. Oral testimony (he says) can rank as strictly authentic evidence only where the person from whom it is derived was concerned in or cognizant of the events which he attests, or where he was at least contemporaneous with them; the events themselves being of sufficient general notoriety to warrant the belief that an intelligent contemporary would possess a competent knowledge of them. In respect to transactions of remoter date, such testimony loses its value in a degree commensurate with the greater or less remoteness of the date. Where the person affording it speaks not from contemporaneous knowledge or information, but from reports transmitted from a previous generation, his evidence becomes Tradition; where the supposed epoch of the events is still more remote, tradition degenerates into Legend or Mythology. If the stages through which tradition passes are few, and the organs of its transmission possess reasonable claims to be considered trustworthy, it may be allowed a share, however limited, of historical value; and a like indulgence may even, on valid grounds of speculative historical probability, be extended in special cases to mythical legend.'(5)

(5) Hist. of Lit. of Gr. vol. iv. p. 297. He here promises a further explanation of speculative historical probability,' which he subjoins in p. 318. The results of such speculative inquiry can never indeed (he says) possess the same value as those founded on authentic written documents. They can rarely amount to more than a fair presumption of the reality of the events in question, as limited to their general substance, not as extending to their details. Nor can these consequently be expected in the minds of different inquirers, any such unity regarding the precise degree of that reality as may frequently exist in respect to events attested by documentary evidence. The principal grounds for admitting an element of truth in oral tradition are, according to Col. Mure: 1. The comparative recency of the age to which the tradition ascends. 2. The probability of the event, and the existence of an apparent causation. 3. The use of writing at the time to which the event is referred, for checking the licence of oral rumour. Compare also the remarks, ib. p. 65.

§ 3 The principles which are to serve as guides in determining this question have been incidentally illustrated in examining the evidences of Roman history, from the foundation of the city to the age of the kings, and during the two first centuries of the Republic. An attempt has been made to ascertain how far the narrative handed down to us as the true account of the affairs of Rome, for 472 years before the existence of contemporary historians, is deserving of our belief. Its constituent parts have, as far as possible, been dissected, with a view of discovering the foundations on which they severally rest, and of discriminating between those stories which are merely legendary, and those which are formed of more solid materials. The application of the rules of evidence to this semi-historical and crepuscular period

-a period of which some knowledge has been preserved, though by imperfect means and in a deteriorated state-is however beset with difficulties, and in general leads only to doubtful and unsatisfactory results. Any additional light which could be thrown upon the subject would therefore be welcome; and some assistance would perhaps be derived from an application of the same principles to a different set of facts. With this view, it will be advisable, before this inquiry is concluded, to compare the corresponding period of Greek history, with a view of examining what are the evidences which support the received narrative of so much of that history as is antecedent to the age of the contemporary historians. If the principles which have been followed in the preceding examination of the early Roman annals are sound, they must be equally sound when applied to those of Greece.

§ 4 The age of contemporary Greek history may be considered as dating from the commencement of the fifth century before Christ, or about 250 years before the origin of native contemporary history at Rome. Thucydides was born in 471, Herodotus in 484, Hellanicus in 496, (6) and Charon of Lampsacus,

(6) These three dates are given by Pamphila ap. Gell. xv. 23. Pamphila lived in the reign of Nero. Her dates for the births of Hellanicus and Herodotus are disputed. See Mure, ib. vol. iv. p. 217, 308, 538. The

perhaps about 510 B.C.(7) The latter appears to have been the earliest Greek historian who narrated the events of his own time; and who recorded genuine historical accounts of a prior age, derived from monuments or oral traditions. The logographers of an early date, such as Acusilaus of Argos,(®) and Hecatæus of Miletus (who was contemporary with the Ionic revolt, and whose birth fell as early as about 550 B.C.),(") did not write the history of their own times, or even of the times immediately preceding. Their genealogical works began with a theogony; and from the gods were deduced the pedigrees of the heroes, whose exploits were afterwards recounted in fabulous legends; but they did not descend to the historical times.(1o)

author of an ancient Life of Euripides says that Hellanicus was born on the day of the battle of Salamis-that is, in 480 B.C.; Biogr. Gr. p. 134, ed. Westermann. C. Müller conjectures that Hellanicus was born in 482 B.C.; Fragm. Hist. Gr. vol. i. p. xxv. With respect to the birth of Herodotus, see above, p. 73, n. 230.

(7) The birth of Charon is placed conjecturally by C. Müller, ib. p. xvii., in 512 B.C.

(8) For an account of his writings, see Mure, ib. p. 164-70. Colonel Mure says of Charon, that he is the first prose author ascertained to have selected his subjects from historical times; and he also appears to have treated them in a rational and honest spirit. He may therefore, in regard to the fundamental requisites of their common art, fairly compete with Herodotus for the honourable title of Father of History.' Dionysius speaks of him as having occupied the ground subsequently travelled over by Herodotus. Οὐ μὴν Ηρόδοτός γε τοῦτ ̓ ἐποίησεν, ἀλλὰ, τῶν πρὸ αὐτοῦ συγγραφέων γενομένων ̔Ελλανικοῦ τε καὶ Χάρωνος τὴν αὐτὴν ὑπόθεσιν προεκδεδω κότων, οὐκ ἀπετράπετο, ἀλλ ̓ ἐπίστευσεν αὐτῶν κρεῖσσόν τι ἐξοίσειν· ὅπερ καὶ TETоinKE. Epist. ad Pomp. c. 3, § 7.

(9) He is mentioned by Herodotus in connexion with public events of the years 501 and 497 B.C. (v. 36, 125.) An anecdote of Hecatæus in 494 B.C. is told by Diod. x. 59, ed. Bekker. Compare Mure, ib. vol. iv. p. 143. There is no reason for supposing that these events in the life of Hecatæus were recorded in any of his own writings, which did not touch upon contemporary history. The supposition of Mr. Grote that Hecatæus may have been with the Ionian fleet at the island of Lade (about 498 B.C.), and have described what he actually saw and heard (vol. iv. p. 406), is not supported by the extant accounts of the writings of this logographer.

(10) These early cultivators of the new style, Cadmus, Acusilaus, and their contemporaries, far from directing their talents to any such useful ends, were content to borrow their subjects, as exclusively as the old metrical genealogists, from the mythical ante-Dorian period. Their com positions were in fact little more than prose paraphrases of those antiquated performances;' Mure, ib. p. 66. The genealogical work of Acusilaus seems to have been confined to purely fabulous matter;' ib. p. 134. The 'genealogies' of Hecatæus narrated, like those of Acusilaus, the pedigrees

Strabo declares that the works of the early historians, such as Cadmus, Pherecydes, and Hecatæus, had the poetical character in everything except metre ;(11) that is to say, their writings were full of the marvellous legends and fictitious tales which formed the material of the early epic poetry.

Josephus, in his Discourse against Apion, contrasts the antiquity of historical registration among the Egyptians, Babylonians, Phoenicians, and Jews, and the stability of their traditions of the past, with the recency of history among the Greeks, and the perishableness of their historical reminiscences. The Greek populations,' he says, 'have been exposed to innumerable catastrophes and changes, which have obliterated the memory of preceding times. (12) Their knowledge of the art of writing is comparatively late: those who give it the earliest date, boast that the Greeks learnt the art from Cadmus and the Phonicians; yet they are unable to show any extant record of that time, in any sacred or civil depository. There has been much controversy whether the subsequent generation, who warred

and adventures of the heroes of the mythical age, and these two works appear, in all fundamental respects, to have resembled each other; ib. p. 158. It is highly doubtful whether the ancient Dionysius of Miletus wrote any work of genuine historical character; ib. p. 164. The researches of Xanthus, in his Lydiaca, appear to have been chiefly confined to the mythical annals of his country; ib. p. 172. A similar view is taken by Niebuhr, in his Lectures on Ancient History. He says that the Greek historians before Herodotus were logographers, in the true sense of the term-that is, collectors of traditions of the past. These traditions were not history, but popular and poetical stories. Their works were written in prose, but either set out from theogonies, or contained the substance of epic poems. They were altogether genealogical, and moved in a legendary. world. It is, he adds, a complete misconception of the idea of history, to call Pherecydes of Syros and Acusilaus historians; vol. i. p. 168-9, ed. Schmitz.

(11) πρώτιστα γὰρ ἡ ποιητικὴ κατασκευὴ παρῆλθεν εἰς τὸ μέσον καὶ εὐδοκί μησεν· εἶτα ἐκείνην μιμούμενοι, λύσαντες τὸ μέτρον, τἆλλα δὲ φυλάξαντες τὰ ποιητικά, συνέγραψαν οἱ περὶ Κάδμον καὶ Φερεκύδη καὶ 'Εκαταῖον, i. 2, § 6.

(12) This appears to be taken from the dialogue between the Egyptian priest and Solon, reported in the Timæus of Plato. The priest says to Solon that the Greeks are always children, and that there is no aged Greek, Being asked to explain his meaning, he proceeds thus: Néo iori ràs tvxàç πάντες· οὐδεμίαν γὰρ ἐν αὐταῖς ἔχετε δι' ἀρχαίαν ἀκοὴν παλαιὰν δόξαν οὐδὲ μάθημα χρόνῳ πολιὸν οὐδέν. τὸ δὲ τούτων αἴτιον τόδε. πολλαὶ καὶ κατὰ πολλὰ φθοραὶ γεγόνασιν ἀνθρώπων καὶ ἔσονται, πυρὶ μὲν καὶ ὕδατι μέγισται, μυρίοις δὲ ἄλλοις ἕτεραι βραχύτεραι, p. 22.