The ancient Greek historians (Harvard lectures) by J. B. Bury.

50 ANCIENT GREEK HISTORIANS LECT.

Hecataeus with him, and used it like a barrister's
brief for cross-examining the temple-servants and
guiding him in his investigations. He added
corrections and new information, but the great
Ionian supplied the groundwork. He does not
say so; he does not acknowledge his debt to
Hecataeus; for, as you know, the ancients had
very different views from the moderns about
literary obligations. It was not the fashion or
etiquette to name your authorities except for some
special reason,-for instance, to criticize them, or
to display your own learning; and you were not
considered a plagiarist if you plundered somebody
else's work without mentioning his name. Hecataeus brought out the importance of the Nile by
the striking phrase that Egypt was the gift of the
river; Herodotus adopts the phrase as if it were
his own. One of the most convincing tests by
which suspected plagiarism can be established is
the occurrence of the same mistakes. Now Herodotus reproduces the errors which Hecataeus had
committed about the hippopotamus. But there
are a whole series of points in which we can trace
the contact between the two writers in regard to
Egypt. As for the mythology, we are left in no
doubt because Herodotus names Hecataeus in this
connexion. "v When Hecataeus was in Thebes he
told his pedigree to the priests and connected himself with a god in the sixteenth generation. And
the priests did to him what they did to me, though
I did not relate my pedigree. They took him into