Note 189 — Chapter VII

That the land–routes of Greece were specially unsafe, we do not learn; as to what was the nature of the insurrection in Achaia under Pius (Vita, 5, 4), we are quite in the dark. If the robber–chief generally—and not precisely the Greek one—plays a prominent part in the light literature of the epoch, this vehicle is common to the bad romance–writers of all ages. The Euboean desert of the more polished Dio was not a robber’s nest, but it was the wreck of a great landed estate, whose possessor had been condemned on account of his wealth by the emperor, and which thenceforth lay waste. Moreover it is here apparent—as indeed needs no proof, at least for those who are non–scholars—that this history is just as true as most which begin by stating that the narrator himself had it from the person concerned; if the confiscation were historical, the possession would have come to the exchequer, not to the town, which the narrator accordingly takes good care not to name.