[Sidenote: Historians used by Pausanias.]
The historian whom Pausanias seems to have studied most carefully and whom he cites most frequently is Herodotus. Though he only once refers to the history of Thucydides and once to that of Xenophon, it is probable that he used both authors in several passages where he does not mention their names. Other historians whom he refers to are Anaximenes, Antiochus of Syracuse, Charon of Lampsacus, Ctesias, Hecataeus, Hellanicus, Hieronymus of Cardia, Myron of Priene, Philistus, Polybius, and Theopompus. Besides these he cites several local histories, such as the histories of Attica by Androtion and Clitodemus, a history of Corinth attributed to Eumelus, a history of Orchomenus by Callippus, and what seems to have been a versified history of Argos by Lyceas. Further, he had read the memoirs of certain obscure historians whose names he does not mention. In his use of the historical materials at his disposal Pausanias appears to have done his best to follow the same critical principles which he applied to the mythical and legendary lore of Greece. When the accounts conflicted he weighed them one against the other and accepted that which on the whole seemed to him to be the more probable or the better authenticated. Thus before proceeding to narrate the history of the Messenian wars he mentions his two chief authorities, namely a prose history of the first war by Myron of Priene and a versified history of the second war by Rhianus of Bene; then he points out a glaring discrepancy between the two in regard to the date of Aristomenes—the William Tell or Sir William Wallace of Messenia—and gives his reasons for accepting the testimony of Rhianus and rejecting that of Myron, whose writings, according to him, revealed an indifference to truth and probability of which he gives a striking instance. Again, Pausanias was able to allow for the bias of prejudice in an historian. Thus he points out that the history of Hieronymus the Cardian was coloured by a partiality for Antigonus and a dislike of Lysimachus, of whom the latter had destroyed the historian’s native city; that the historian Philistus concealed the worst excesses of Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, because he hoped to be allowed by the tyrant to return to that city; and that Androtion, the historian of Attica, had apparently introduced a certain narrative for the sole purpose of casting reproach on the Lacedaemonians.