POETRY is more philosophical and more worth-while than history, for poetry speaks in general terms, while history concerns itself with detail [Ta xtxa& EXwTov EyFL].'I This Aristotelian pronouncement is valuable because it is offered so casually, not as a novelty but as something to be accepted without discussion. The great master of logic, who, when necessary, could bring such effective arguments to bear on a disputed point, contents himself here with mere assertion. The antipathy, or at least the divergence, of philosopher and historian was no new thing in Aristotle's day. Isocrates, the longlived publicist and rhetorician,2 though not a historian himself was intimately connected with the development of historiography through his experiments in biography3 and through his influence on Ephorus and Theopompus.4 The