LI. What historians relate of the victories of the Norman princes in Sicily, is likewise void of all probability: for instance, that out of three hundred thousand men defeated by Roger, not one escaped; that the sons of Tancred, with seven hundred horse and five hundred infantry, beat the army of the emperor of Constantinople, consisting of seventy thousand men. But all we have hitherto mentioned, is nothing compared with what is told by Nicetas in his history of the emperor Alexis; which is, that at the siege of Constantinople, one Frenchman only, put to flight the whole Grecian army. LII. Lucian treats as fabulous and ridiculous all the accounts of such disproportionate numbers slain. The remark of Titus Livius, when he was told of an alarming apparition that had been seen in the tomb of Veis, may be applied to many relations in history. He says, these incidents are more proper for the theatre than history; and I don’t chuse either to affirm or refute them, it being sufficient to know they were once published by the voice of fame. _Diversity of Opinions upon many famous historical Facts._ LIII. Metrodorus Lampsacenus without the least scruple affirms, that the heroes of whom Homer makes mention in the Iliad, such as Agamemnon, Achilles, Hector, Paris, and Eneas, are all fictitious persons, who never existed. LIV. Some authors assert, that the number of women stolen by the Romans from the Sabines, did not exceed thirty. Valerius Antias and Dionysius Halicarnasseus, make them amount to five hundred and twenty seven; and Juba computes them at six hundred and eighty three. LV. Titus Livius, Florus, Plutarch, and Aurelius Victor, say, that the dictator Camillus defeated and drove away the Gauls who had taken Rome; Polybius, Justin, and Suetonius, tell us, that the Venetians having made an irruption into the territories of the Gauls; these, that they might be at leisure to attend to the defence of their own country, accommodated matters with the Romans, who agreed to pay them a certain sum of money, upon condition of their leaving Rome, with which money and the plunder they had made, they returned home. LVI. Plutarch begins his life of Lycurgus thus: “We can say nothing positively of the law-giver Lycurgus, because historians speak very variously concerning him, and _because_, respecting his origin, his voyages, his death, and even his laws, and the form of government he established, there are divers traditions; but there is more disagreement still in the accounts we have of him, with respect to the time he lived in.”