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IN OLD IRÂN.
25

cian, and retorted upon him the charge of untruthfulness which he had preferred against Herodotus. It was difficult, however, to convict Ctesias of systematic falsehood until Oriental materials of an authentic character were obtained by which to test the conflicting accounts of the two writers. A comparison with the Jewish Scriptures and with the native history of Berosus first raised a general suspicion of the bad faith of Ctesias, whose credit few moderns have been bold enough to maintain against the continually increasing evidence against him. At last the coup de grâce has been given to his small remaining reputation by the recent Cuneiform discoveries, which convict him of having striven to rise into notice by a system of 'enormous lying,' to which the history of literature scarcely presents a parallel."

Hence it is that the historian Grote is perfectly justified in remarking:—"This is a proof of the prevalence of discordant, yet equally accredited, stories. So rare and late a plant is historical authenticity."

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