A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

2. A celebrated Lydian historian, older than Herodotus, who is said to have been indebted to the work of Xanthus (Ephor. apud Ath. xii. p. 515, Ἡροδότῳ τὰς ἀφορμὰς δεδωκότος; the statement about his influence on Herodotus is questioned by Dahlmann, de Herod. p. 121). Suidas makes him the son of Candaules, and a native of Sardis ; but there is reason to believe that these statements rest on no good authority. Strabo (xiii. p.628a.) mentions him in the following terms :--" And Xanthus, the ancient historian, is said to have been a Lydian; but whether he was of Sardis, we do not know." Suidas fixes his date "at the taking of Sardis," which, if there be any truth in it, must refer to the taking of Sardis by the Ionians in B. C. 499. This date, however, appears to be rather too high, when compared with the mention of Xanthus by Dionysius of Halicarnassus (de Jud. Thuc. p. 818), among the writers who were " a little older than the Peloponnesian war, and whose time reached down to that of Thucydides." There is another indication of the date of Xanthus, proving, if the quotation be genuine, that he wrote, or continued to write, his history after B. C. 464; for Strabo (i. p.49c.) tells us that he mentioned a great drought in the reign of Artaxerxes, who came to the throne in B. C. 464. It is therefore the opinion of critics, either that the date given by Suidas must be that of the birth of Xanthus, which is a most unusual sense of γεγονώς in Suidas, or else that the passage has been corrupted by a transcriber, who accidentally repeated the word Σάρδεων. (The passage is Ξάνθος, Κανδαύλου, Αυδὸς ἐκ Σάρδεων· ἱστορικός· γεγονὼς ἐπὶ τῆς ἁλώσεως Σάρδεων). This is the suggestion of Creuzer, who proposes to substitute Ἀθηνῶν for Σάρδεων, thus referring the time of Xanthus to the taking of Athens by Xerxes, in B. C. 480; but, though this correction may give a truer date for Xanthus, it can hardly be accepted as being what Suidas wrote.

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