Well, on reading all these authors, I did
not find much fault with them for their lying, as I
saw that this was already a common practice even
among men who profess philosophy. A slap at Plato’s Republic (x. 614 A seg.), as the scholiast
says. 
I did wonder,
though, that they thought that they could write untruths and not get caught at it. Therefore, as I myself,
thanks to my vanity, was eager to hand something




 

down to posterity, that I might not be the only one
excluded from the privileges of poetic licence, and
as I had nothing true to tell, not having had any
adventures of significance, I took to lying. But my
lying is far more honest than theirs, for though I
tell the truth in nothing else, I shall at least be
truthful in saying that I ama liar. I think I can
escape the censure of the world by my own admission that I am not telling a word of truth. Be it
understood, then, that I am writing about things
which I have neither seen nor had to do with nor
learned from others—which, in fact, do not exist at
all and, in the nature of things, cannot exist.
 Compare the protestations of Ctesias and of Antonius
Diogenes (Phot. cod. 72, 49-50; 166, 109 b). 
Therefore my readers should on no account believe
in them.