Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/111

 GEOGRAPHY CVU capture of the first Syracusan counter- wall (vi. loo) is not fully described and can only be inferred ; the ' Argive hoplites ' who were killed in the Syracusan out-works after the capture of the stockade must have joined the attacking party from one of the two other divisions of the army. Once more, in the calculation of distances the eye or the information of the writer was frequently at fault. For examples see below. There has been a good deal of controversy on this subject. Even into geography the spirit of party may find a way. Some commentators have been desirous of maintaining the credit of their author, like Dr. Arnold, who was of opinion that ' when Geographers who are also Scholars visit the places of which Thucydides speaks per- sonally, most of the difficulties in his descriptions will vanish.' That remark of course supposes that Thucydides, rightly understood, is generally or always in the right. We may imagine the writer of it to feel what he does not say: 'The most accurate and trustworthy of historians can hardly be imagined to be ignorant as a schoolboy of geography.' And certainly, in his account of Pylos and Sphacteria, Dr. Arnold is ready, in a figure, to work a miracle in order to save the reputation of Thucydides. Changes in the formation of the coast are the ' Deus ex machina ' to which he has recourse. Yet it may very likely be true that Thucydides is far behind Strabo or Pausanias or Stephanus Byzantinus in geography, though his conception of history may be quite unattainable by them. Still greater would be the dis- parity of his knowledge when compared with that of a modern traveller, or resident in Greece, who has perhaps surveyed and explored places which the historian himself may not have visited. For the knowledge of geography is always growing with time, while history fades into the distance. The materials of the one are increasing, while those of the other are diminishing. The credibility of an author's geography is not therefore to be judged of h2