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194 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE course he cannot have known by his own wits. In another passage (iii. 105), where our text says that Olpa?, a place on the extreme border of Acarnania towards Amphilochia, was " the common tribunal of the Acarnanians," Stephen quotes it as ^' of the Acarnanians and Amphilochians" which is just what its position demands. The upshot of this is that all criticism of Thucydides must recognise the demonstrable imperfection of our text. For instance, in the well-known Mitylenzean story, when the Assembly has condemned the whole military population to death in a moment of passion, repented the same day, and, by the tremendous exertion of the galley-rowers who bore the reprieve, saved them, it proceeds to condemn and execute the ringleaders of the rebellion, " those most guilty!' " They numbered rather more than 1000 " (iii. 50) ! Is that number remotely credible ? There is nothing in which MSS. are so utterly untrustworthy as figures, the Greek numeral system lending itself so easily to enormous mistakes. The ringleaders were in Athens at the time. It was a deliberate execution of prisoners, not a hot-blooded massacre ; and nobody, either in Thucydides or for centuries after him, takes the least notice of it ! Dio- dorus, with his Thucydides before him, makes Hermo- crates of Syracuse deliver a speech upon all the crimes of Athens ; he tells of many smaller things ; he tells of the cruel decision of the first Assembly and of the enormity which the Athenians thought of committing — and omits to mention that they executed toco of their subjects in cold blood. It is clear that Diodorus did not read our story. It all rests on the absolute cor- rectness of the figure a ; and oui- editors cry aloud and