17
If I have to mention a philosopher let his name remain unknown. I shall speak only of his general views and his recent writings in Corinth. They went beyond all expectation. Right at the beginning in the first sentence of his introduction he used dialectic on his readers in his eagerness to show off a very clever argument. This was to the effect that only the philosopher was fit to write history. Then a little later came one syllogism, then another. In short his introduction was sheer dialectic in every figure of the syllogism. His flattery was nauseating: his eulogies were vulgar and downright low; even they were syllogistic and dialectical in form. I certainly thought it in poor taste and not at all becoming a philosopher and a long, grey beard to say, as he did in his introduction, that it will be a special distinction of our commander that even philosophers think fit to recount his deeds. Such a comment he should have left for us, if anybody, to think of and not made it himself.
18
Again it would not be right to omit the one who began as follows: “I come to speak of Romans and Persians,” and a little later said: “The Persians were foredoomed to come to grief,” and again: “It was Osroes, whom the Greeks call Oxyrhoes” and many more things of this sort, all in Ionic. Do you see? He was like Crepereius, only Crepereius was a wonderful copy of Thucydides, this man of Herodotus.
