77

136

have come down to us, the great majority of which
are doubtless spurious, and contain
matter of fact purely imaginary; and yet having been
written with sufficient skill to baffle the
by no means unintelligent critics attached to
the library, they have a great deal of real
historical truth of a more or less general kind
valuable to us, interwoven with their fictions.

It is likely that Pythagoras and
Polycrates, both very superior men, living on
the small island of Samos together would be
acquainted with one another. At any rate,
the story goes that Pythagoras, returning to
Samos, found Polycrates in power, that he
did not like this state of things, and that he
sold out all his possessions and betook

136

have come down to us, the great majority of which
are doubtless spurious, and contain
matter of fact purely imaginary; and yet having been
written with sufficient skill to baffle the
by no means unintelligent critics attached to
the library, they have a great deal of real
historical truth of a more or less general kind
valuable to us, interwoven with their fictions.