Now if, as they say, one may compare great things with small, this Abderian disorder seems to have seized on many of our literati of the present age; not that it sets them on acting tragedies (for the folly would not be so great in repeating other people’s verses, especially if they were good ones), but ever since the war was begun against the barbarians, the defeat in Armenia, {19a} and the victories consequent on it, not one is there amongst us who does not write a history; or rather, I may say, we are all Thucydideses, Herodotuses, and Xenophons.  Well may they say war is the parent of all things, {19b} when one action can make so many historians.  This puts me in mind of what happened at Sinope. {20a} When the Corinthians heard that Philip was going to attack them, they were all alarmed, and fell to work, some brushing up their arms, others bringing stones to prop up their walls and defend their bulwarks, every one, in short, lending a hand.  Diogenes observing this, and having nothing to do (for nobody employed him), tucked up his robe, and, with all his might, fell a rolling his tub which he lived in up and down the Cranium. {20b} “What are you about?” said one of his friends.  “Rolling my tub,” replied he, “that whilst everybody is busy around me, I may not be the only idle person in the kingdom.”  In like manner, I, my dear Philo, being very loath in this noisy age to make no noise at all, or to act the part of a mute in the comedy, think it highly proper that I should roll my tub also; not that I mean to write history myself, or be a narrator of facts; you need not fear me, I am not so rash, knowing the danger too well if I roll it amongst the stones, especially such a tub as mine, which is not over-strong, so that the least pebble I strike against would dash it in pieces.  I will tell you, however, what my design is—­how I mean to be present at the battle and yet keep out of the reach of danger.  I intend to shelter myself from the waves and the smoke, {21} and the cares that writers are liable to, and only give them a little good advice and a few precepts; to have, in short, some little hand in the building, though I do not expect my name will be inscribed on it, as I shall but just touch the mortar with the tip of my finger.

There are many, I know, who think there is no necessity for instruction at all with regard to this business, any more than there is for walking, seeing, or eating, and that it is the easiest thing in the world for a man to write history if he can but say what comes uppermost.  But you, my friend, are convinced that it is no such easy matter, nor should it be negligently and carelessly performed; but that, on the other hand, if there be anything in the whole circle of literature that requires more than ordinary care and attention, it is undoubtedly this.  At least, if a man would wish, as Thucydides says, to labour for posterity.  I very well know that I cannot attack so many without rendering myself obnoxious to some, especially those