Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/284

262 262 HISTORY OF THE treasures from the temple of Brancbidse*. This advice proves Hecataeus to have been a prudent and sagacious man, who understood the true situation of thing's. Hecataeus did not share the prevalent interest about the primitive history of his nation, and still less had he the infantine and undoubting faith which was exhibited by the Argive Acusilaus. He says, in an extant fragment f — "Thus says Hecataeus the Milesian: these things I write, as they seem to me to be true ; for the stories of the Greeks are manifold and ludicrous, as it appears to me." He also shows traces of that perverse system of interpretation which seeks to transmute the marvels of fable into natural events; as, for example, he explained Cerberus as a serpent which inhabited the promontory of Tcenarum. But his attention was peculiarly directed to passing events and the nature of the countries and kingdoms with which Greece began to entertain intimate relations. He had travelled much, like Herodotus, and had in particular collected much information about Egypt. Hero- dotus often corrects his statements ; but by so doing he recognises Hecataeus as the most important of his predecessors. Hecataeus per- petuated the results of his geographical and ethnographical researches in a work entitled " Travels round the Earth" (Hepioooc yrjo), by which a description of the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea and of southern Asia as far as India was understood. The author began with Greece, proceeding in a book, entitled " Europe'' to the west, and in another, entitled "Asia," to the east J. Hecataeus also improved and com- pleted the map of the earth sketched by Anaximander § ; it must have been this map which Aristagoras of Miletus brought to Sparta before the Ionian revolt, and upon which he showed the king of Sparta the countries, rivers, and principal cities of the East. Besides this work, another is ascribed to Hecataeus, which is sometimes called " His- tories," sometimes "Genealogies;" and of which four books are cited. Into this work, Hecataeus admitted many of the genealogical legends of the Greeks ; and, notwithstanding his contempt for old fables, he laid great stress upon genealogies ascending to the mythological pe- riod ; thus he made a pedigree for himself, in which his sixteenth an- cestor was a god ||. Genealogies would afford opportunities for intro- ducing accounts of different periods; and Hecataeus certainly narrated death of Hecataeus are fixed with less certainty at Olymp. 57. and Olymp. 75. 4. f See Demetr. de Elocut. § 12. Historicorum Grsec. Antiq. Fragmenta, coll. F. Creuzer, p. 15. Three hundred and thirty-one fragments of this work are collected in Hecataei Milesii fragmenta ed. R. H. Klausen. Berolini, 1830. It appears in some cases to have received additions since its first publication, as was commonly the case with manuals of this kind. Thus Hecataeus Er. 27. mentions Capua, which name, ac- cording to Livy, was given to Vultuvnum in A.U.C. 315 (b.c. 447). § This is certain from Agathemerus I. 1.
 * Herod, v. 36, who calls him 'Ex.ara.7os o Xoyovoio;. The times of the birth and
 * Herod. II. 143.