Timaeus's Statement of Method
Let us now, then, examine the method of Timaeus, and
note
compare his account of this colony, that we may
learn which of the two better deserves such
vituperation. He says in the same book: "I
am not now proceeding on conjecture, but have
investigated the truth in the course of a personal
visit to the Locrians in Greece. The Locrians first of all showed
me a written treaty which began with the words, 'as parents
to children.' There are also existing decrees securing mutual
rights of citizenship to both. In fine, when they were told of
Aristotle's account of the colony, they were astonished at the
audacity of that writer. I then crossed to the Italian Locri
and found that the laws and customs there accorded with the
theory of a colony of free men, not with the licentiousness of
slaves. For among them there are penalties assigned to man-catchers, adulterers, and run-away slaves. And this would not
have been the case if they were conscious of having been such
themselves."
