cured by time. For instance, there is the notion that the
Lacedaemonian kings have two votes each, the fact being that they have
only one; and that there is a company of Pitane, there being simply no
such thing. So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation
of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand. On the
whole, however, the conclusions I have drawn from the proofs quoted may,
I believe, safely be relied on. Assuredly they will not be disturbed
either by the lays of a poet displaying the exaggeration of his craft,
or by the compositions of the chroniclers that are attractive at truth's
expense; the subjects they treat of being out of the reach of evidence,
and time having robbed most of them of historical value by enthroning
them in the region of legend. Turning from these, we can rest satisfied
with having proceeded upon the clearest data, and having arrived at
conclusions as exact as can be expected in matters of such antiquity.
To come to this war: despite the known disposition of the actors in a
struggle to overrate its importance, and when it is over to return to
their admiration of earlier events, yet an examination of the facts will
show that it was much greater than the wars which preceded it.

With reference to the speeches in this history, some were delivered
before the war began, others while it was going on; some I heard myself,
others I got from various quarters; it was in all cases difficult to
carry them word for word in one's memory, so my habit has been to make
the speakers say what was in my opinion demanded of them by the various
occasions, of course adhering as closely as possible to the general
sense of what they really said. And with reference to the narrative of
events, far from permitting myself to derive it from the first source
that came to hand, I did not even trust my own impressions, but it
rests partly on what I saw myself, partly on what others saw for me,
the accuracy of the report being always tried by the most severe and
detailed tests possible. My conclusions have cost me some labour from
the want of coincidence between accounts of the same occurrences by
different eye-witnesses, arising sometimes from imperfect memory,
sometimes from undue partiality for one side or the other. The absence
of romance in my history will, I fear, detract somewhat from its
interest; but if it be judged useful by those inquirers who desire
an exact knowledge of the past as an