Against Apion | Page 5

one another about the Athenian
affairs; nor do the historians the like, that wrote the Argolics, about the affairs of the
Argives. And now what need I say any more about particular cities and smaller places,

while in the most approved writers of the expedition of the Persians, and of the actions
which were therein performed, there are so great differences? Nay, Thucydides himself is
accused of some as writing what is false, although he seems to have given us the exactest
history of the affairs of his own time. (4)
4. As for the occasions of so great disagreement of theirs, there may be assigned many
that are very probable, if any have a mind to make an inquiry about them; but I ascribe
these contradictions chiefly to two causes, which I will now mention, and still think what
I shall mention in the first place to be the principal of all. For if we remember that in the
beginning the Greeks had taken no care to have public records of their several
transactions preserved, this must for certain have afforded those that would afterward
write about those ancient transactions the opportunity of making mistakes, and the power
of making lies also; for this original recording of such ancient transactions hath not only
been neglected by the other states of Greece, but even among the Athenians themselves
also, who pretend to be Aborigines, and to have applied themselves to learning, there are
no such records extant; nay, they say themselves that the laws of Draco concerning
murders, which are now extant in writing, are the most ancient of their public records;
which Draco yet lived but a little before the tyrant Pisistratus. (5) For as to the Arcadians,
who make such boasts of their antiquity, what need I speak of them in particular, since it
was still later before they got their letters, and learned them, and that with difficulty also.
(6)
5. There must therefore naturally arise great differences among writers, when they had no
original records to lay for their foundation, which might at once inform those who had an
inclination to learn, and contradict those that would tell lies. However, we are to suppose
a second occasion besides the former of these contradictions; it is this: That those who
were the most zealous to write history were not solicitous for the discovery of truth,
although it was very easy for them always to make such a profession; but their business
was to demonstrate that they could write well, and make an impression upon mankind
thereby; and in what manner of writing they thought they were able to exceed others, to
that did they apply themselves, Some of them betook themselves to the writing of
fabulous narrations; some of them endeavored to please the cities or the kings, by writing
in their commendation; others of them fell to finding faults with transactions, or with the
writers of such transactions, and thought to make a great figure by so doing. And indeed
these do what is of all things the most contrary to true history; for it is the great character
of true history that all concerned therein both speak and write the same things; while
these men, by writing differently about the same things, think they shall be believed to
write with the greatest regard to truth. We therefore [who are Jews] must yield to the
Grecian writers as to language and eloquence of composition; but then we shall give them
no such preference as to the verity of ancient history, and least of all as to that part which
concerns the affairs of our own several countries.
6. As to the care of writing down the records from the earliest antiquity among the
Egyptians and Babylonians; that the priests were intrusted therewith, and employed a
philosophical concern about it; that they were the Chaldean priests that did so among the
Babylonians; and that the Phoenicians, who were mingled among the Greeks, did
especially make use of their letters, both for the common affairs of life, and for the
delivering down the history of common transactions, I think I may omit any proof,
because all men allow it so to be. But now as to our forefathers, that they took no less

care about writing such records, (for I will not say they took greater care than the others I
spoke of,) and that they committed that matter to their high priests and to their prophets,
and that these records have been written all along down to our own times with the utmost
accuracy; nay, if it be not too bold for me to say it, our history will be so written hereafter;
- I shall endeavor briefly to inform you.
7. For our forefathers did not only appoint