“ EPHORUS (c. 400–330 B.C.) , of Cyme in Aeolis, in Asia Minor, Greek historian. Together with the historian Theopompus he was a pupil of Isocrates, in whose school he attended two courses of rhetoric. But he does not seem to have made much progress in the art, and it is said to have been at the suggestion of Isocrates himself that he took up literary composition and the study of history. The fruit of his labours was his Ἱστορίαι in 29 books, the first universal history, beginning with the return of the Heraclidae to Peloponnesus, as the first well-attested historical event. ”

“ He was further to be commended for drawing (though not always) a sharp line of demarcation between the mythical and historical (Strabo ix. p. 423) ; he even recognized that a profusion of detail, though lending corroborative force to accounts of recent events, is ground for suspicion in reports of far-distant history. ”

“ His style was high-flown and artificial, as was natural considering his early training, and he frequently sacrificed truth to rhetoric effect; but, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, he and Theopompus were the only historical writers whose language was accurate and finished. Other works attributed to him were:—A Treatise on Discoveries; Respecting Good and Evil Things ”