14) could never have been guilty of that of which evil rumour
accused him.
But the chief object of his literary censure is Timaeus, who had
been unsparing of his strictures on others. The general point
which he makes against him, impugning his accuracy as a historian,
is that he derived his knowledge of history not from the dangerous
perils of a life of action but in the secure indolence of a narrow
scholastic life. There is, indeed, no point on which he is so
vehement as this. 'A history,' he says, 'written in a library
gives as lifeless and as inaccurate a picture of history as a
painting which is copied not from a living animal but from a
stuffed one.'
There is more difference, he says in another place, between the
history of an eye-witness and that of one whose knowledge comes
from books, than there is between the scenes of real life and the
fictitious landscapes of theatrical scenery. Besides this, he
enters into somewhat elaborate detailed criticism of passages where
he thought Timaeus was following a wrong method and perverting
truth, passages which it will be worth while to examine in detail.
Timaeus, from the fact of there being a Roman custom to shoot a
war-horse on a stated day, argued back to the Trojan origin of that
people.
Pages:
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100