Read the same author’s _Bithynica_ in eight books, containing a
detailed account of the mythical and general history of Bithynia.
It is a history of his own country, dedicated to it as a patriotic
offering. For he tells us definitely in this work that he was born
in Nicomedia, brought up and educated there, and held the office of
priest of Demeter and her daughter, to whom the city was sacred. He
mentions various works of his on other subjects, such as the career
of the Corinthian Timoleon in Sicily, and the memorable deeds of Dion
the Syracusan, who freed Syracuse and the whole of Sicily from the
second Dionysius, the son of the first, and from the barbarians, whom
Dionysius had introduced to support his tyranny. It appears that the
history of his country was the fourth work he wrote, being written
after the histories of Alexander the Great, Timoleon, and Dion.
Certainly from the time when he first took to a literary career he
had intended to treat of this subject, but the work took some time to
complete owing to the lack of material; at least, this is the reason
he himself gives for the delay in its production. He begins, as
stated, with mythical history and goes down to the death of the last
Nicomedes,[499] who at his death left his kingdom to the Romans, who
had never had a king since the expulsion of the Tarquins.