the face of persuasion, is prevalent,
especially when delivered in the good language, and such as has power
to conceal both the other absurdities and the ill-nature of the writer.
King Philip told the Greeks who revolted from him to Titus Quinctius
that they had got a more polished, but a longer lasting yoke. So the
malice of Herodotus is indeed more polite and delicate than that
of Theopompus, yet it pinches closer, and makes a more severe
impression,--not unlike to those winds which, blowing secretly through
narrow chinks, are sharper than those that are more diffused. Now it
seems to me very convenient to delineate, as it were, in the rough
draught, those signs and marks that distinguish a malicious narration
from a candid and unbiassed one, applying afterwards every point we
shall examine to such as appertain to them.

First then, whoever in relating a story shall use the odious terms
when gentler expressions might do as well, is it not to be esteemed
impartial, but an enjoyer of his own fancy, in putting the worst
construction on things; as if any one, instead of saying Nicias is
too superstitious, should call him fanatic, or should accuse Cleon
of presumption and madness rather than of inconsiderateness in
speech.----------Secondly, when a writer, catching hold of a fault which
has no reference to his story, shall draw it into the relation of such
affairs as need it not, extending his narrative with cicumlocutions,
only that he may insert a man's misfortune, offence, or discommendable
action, it is manifest that he delights in speaking evil. Therefore
Thucydides would not clearly relate the faults of Cleon, which were very
numerous; and as for Hyperbolus the orator, having touched at him in
a word and called him an ill man, he let him go. Philistus also passed
over all those outrages committed by Dionysius on the barbarians which
had no connection with the Grecian affairs. For the excursions
and digressions of history are principally allowed for fables and
antiquities, and sometimes also for encomiums. But he who makes
reproaches and detractions an addition to his discourse seems to incur
the tragedian's curse on the "collector of men's calamities."

Now the opposite to this is known to every one, as the omitting to
relate some good and laudable action, which, though it may seem not to
be reprehensible, yet is then done maliciously when the omission happens
in a place that is pertinent to the history. For to pra