a tile or an oyster-shell, when they wanted to banish or
poison him. Such scanty knowledge, and so base materials, go but a little
way towards science. What history was there of Corinth, or of Sparta? What
annals were there of Argos, or Messena; of Elis, or the cities of Achaia?
None: not even of [522]Athens. There are not the least grounds to surmise
that any single record existed. The names of the Olympic victors from
Coroebus, and of the priestesses of Argos, were the principal memorials to
which they pretended: but how little knowledge could be obtained from
hence! The laws of Draco, in the thirty-ninth Olympiad, were certainly the
most antient writing to which we can securely appeal. When the Grecians
began afterwards to bestir themselves, and to look back upon what had
passed, they collected whatever accounts could be [523]obtained. They tried
also to separate and arrange them, to the best of their abilities, and to
make the various parts of their history correspond. They had still some
good materials to proceed upon, had they thoroughly understood them; but
herein was a great failure. Among the various traditions handed down, they
did not consider which really related to their country, and which had been
introduced from other[524] parts. Indeed they did not chuse to distinguish,
but adopted all for their own; taking the merit of every antient
transaction to themselves. No people had a greater love for science, nor
displayed a more refined taste in composition. Their study was ever to
please, and to raise admiration. Hence they always aimed at the marvellous,
which they dressed up in a most winning manner: at the same time they
betrayed a seeming veneration for antiquity. But their judgment was
perverted, and this veneration attended with little regard for the truth.
[525]They had a high opinion of themselves, and of their country in
general: and, being persuaded that they sprang from the ground on which
they stood, and that the Arcadians were older than the moon, they rested
satisfied with this, and looked no farther. In short, they had no love for
any thing genuine, no desire to be instructed. Their history could not be
reformed but by an acknowledgment which their pride would not suffer them
to make. They therefore devoted themselves to an idle mythology: and there
was nothing so contradictory and absurd but was greedily admitted, if
sanctified by tradition. Even when the truth glared in their very faces,
they tur