Πῶς δεῖ Ἱστορίαν συγγράφειν

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İngilizce İngilizce Yunanca Yunanca

4 So in my own case, Philo, to avoid being the only mute in such a polyphonic time, pushed about open-mouthed without a word like an extra in a comedy, I thought it a good idea to roll my barrel as best I could; not to produce a history or even merely chronicle the events—I’m not so bold as that: don’t be afraid that I should go that far. I know the danger of rolling it over rocks, particularly a poorly baked little barrel like mine. Just as soon as it hits against a tiny piece of stone we shall have to pick up the pieces.

4 I shall tell you then what I have decided to do and how I shall take part in the war in safety, keeping well out of range myself. “From your spray and surge’’ Homer, Od. xii, 198, describing the whirlpool of Charybdis. and all the cares that attend the writer of history I shall keep myself aloof and rightly so. In fact, I shall offer a little advice and these few precepts to historians, so that I may share in the erection of their building, if not the inscription on it, by putting at any rate my finger-tip on the mortar.