de touton kai alla thaumasiotera
paralipein, dia to mae doxai tois mae tauta theasamenois apista
syngraphein;] i.e. _These things_ (saith he) Ctesias _writes and feigns,
but he himself says all he has wrote is very true. Adding, that some
things which he describes, he had seen himself; and the others he had
learn'd from those that had seen them: That he had omitted a great many
other things more wonderful, because he would not seem to those that have
not seen them, to write incredibilities_. But notwithstanding all this,
_Lucian_[C] will not believe a word he saith; for he tells us that
_Ctesias_ has wrote of _India_, [Greek: A maete autos eide, maete allou
eipontos aekousen], _What he neither saw himself, nor ever heard from any
Body else._ And _Aristotle_ tells us plainly, he is not fit to be believed:
[Greek: En de taei Indikaei hos phaesi Ktaesias, ouk on axiopistos.][D]
And the same opinion _A. Gellius_[E] seems to have of him, as he had
likewise of several other old _Greek Historians_ which happened to fall
into his hands at _Brundusium_, in his return from _Greece_ into _Italy_;
he gives this Character of them and their performance: _Erant autem isti
omnes libri Graeci, miraculorum fabularumque pleni: res inauditae,
incredulae, Scriptores veteres non parvae authoritatis_, Aristeas
Proconnesius, & Isagonus, & Nicaeensis, & Ctesias, & Onesicritus, &
Polystephanus, & Hegesias. Not that I think all that _Ctesias_ has wrote
is fabulous; For tho' I cannot believe his _speaking Pygmies_, yet what he
writes of the _Bird_ he calls [Greek: Bittakos], that it would speak
_Greek_ and the _Indian Language_, no doubt is very true; and as _H.
Stephens_[F] observes in his Apology for _Ctesias_, such a Relation would
seem very surprising to one, that had never seen nor heard of a _Parrot_.

[Footnote A: _Diodor. Siculi Bibliothec_. lib. 2. p.m. 118.]

[Footnote B: _Strabo Geograph_. lib. 14. p. 451.]

[Footnote C: _Lucian_ lib 1. _verae Histor_. p.m. 373.]

[Footnote D: _Arist. Hist. Animal._ lib. 8. cap. 28.]

[Footnote E: _A. Gellij. Noctes. Attic._ lib. 9. cap. 4.]

[Footnote F: _Henr. Stephani de Ctesia Historico antiquissimo disquisitio,
ad finem Herodoti._]

But this Story of _Ctesias_'s _speaking Pygmies_, seems to be confirm'd by
the Account that _Nonnosus_, the Emperour _Justinian_'s Ambassador into
_AEthiopia_, gives of his Travels. I will transcribe the Passage, as I find
it in _Photius_,[A] and 'tis as follows: