Note 77 — Chapter I · (continued 2)

Herodotus (i. 106) alludes to this capital event only in a word or two, in which he promises to give a more complete account of the whole matter in another work—εν ἑτεροισι λογοι—doubtless in that History of Assyria ("Ασσυριοι λογοι" i. 184) which was either never written or soon lost. Diodorus, who gives circumstantial details both of the coalition and the siege, dates it a century too early, changes all the names, and mixes up many fables with his recital (ii. 23-28). In forming a just idea of the catastrophe and of its date we have to depend chiefly upon the lost historians, such as Abydenus and Alexander Polyhistor, fragments of whose works have been preserved for us by Eusebius and Georgius Syncellus. See Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies, etc., vol. ii. pp. 221-232.