1
They say, my dear Philo, that in the reign of King Lysimachus the people of Abdera were smitten by an epidemic. These were its symptoms: at first every one of them fell ill of a fever, violent and obstinate right from the start; about the seventh day it was broken, in some cases by a copious flow of blood from the nostrils, in others by heavy sweating; but their minds were left in a ridiculous state; they all went mad with tragedy, shouting iambics and creating a din; and they mostly sang solos from Euripides’ “Andromeda,” Or “sang as a solo Andromeda’s part in Euripides’ play.” rendering Perseus’ speech in song; the city was full of these seventh-day tragedians, all pale and thin, roaring, “Love, you tyrant of gods and men” and the rest in a loud voice, hour after hour, day after day, until winter and a severe cold spell stopped their noise. Archelaus the actor seems to me to blame for such goings on. He was popular then, and in the middle of summer in the blazing heat had played the “Andromeda” for them, so that most of them brought their fever away from the theatre with them, and later when they left their beds relapsed into tragedy; the “Andromeda” kept haunting their memory, and his Perseus with Medusa’s head still flitted round everyone’s brain.
2
To make as they say a comparison, that Abderite complaint has now taken hold of most of the literary world. They don’t act tragedy—they would be less out of their wits if they were in the grip of other men’s verses, not shoddy ones at that. No, ever since the present situation arose—the war against the barbarians, the disaster in Armenia and the run of victories—every single person is writing history; nay more, they are all Thucydideses, Herodotuses and Xenophons to us, and very true, it seems, is the saying that “War is the father of all things” A saying of Heraclitus. since at one stroke it has begotten so many historians.
