The value of the various items of evidence collected and reviewed in the preceding chapters varies very greatly. In some cases we have precise statements bearing closely on the point in question and made by almost contemporary writers. At the other end of the list we have anecdotes of doubtful relevance and doubtful authenticity found in writers who lived centuries after the period to which they refer. It is difficult to sum up the value of so miscellaneous a collection. The estimate is bound to vary greatly according to the temperament and training of the person who makes it. There are however two points which seem in the present state of scholarship to need especial emphasis. The first of these refers to the generally prevalent attitude towards the question of historical truth as it affects generally the period under consideration. No one who has read at all widely in modern writings on ancient history can have failed to observe that the scepticism or credulity of any given scholar has always depended largely on that of his generation. Up to a point this is inevitable: but we are reaching a stage when it is no longer necessary to follow quite so blindly as has hitherto been done the natural reaction from excessive credulity to excessive scepticism and _vice versa_. The pendulum has now been swinging long enough for its motion to be observed and allowed for. There is no doubt that scholars of a few generations ago were often and perhaps in general unduly credulous. But it is no less certain that the main tendency of the past century has been to react from excessive credulity to no less excessive scepticism. The beginnings of the sceptical reaction were observed by Byron: I’ve stood upon Achilles’ tomb And heard Troy doubted: Time will doubt of Rome. The doubts about Troy have been triumphantly dispelled by the spade. So likewise, as we have seen already, have many doubts as to the reality of the Tarquins’ Rome. But the wonderful discoveries of the last forty years at Troy, Mycenae, Knossos, Phaistos, and other sites of early Cretan civilization have diverted the attention of scholars from later periods. It need therefore cause no surprise if in the preceding pages there has repeatedly been occasion to criticize prevailing views as excessively and uncritically sceptical.