Plutarch (c. 50-120)
“So very difficult a matter is it to trace and find out the truth of any thing by history, when, on the one hand, those who afterwords write it find long periods of time intercepting their view, and, on the other hand, the contemporary records of any actions and lives, partly through envy and ill-will, partly through favor and flattery, pervert and distort truth.”
- Plutarch in Parallel Lives (Life of Pericles, 13.12). The edition used here is from the Harvard Classics series, edited by Charles W. Eliot, and published by P. F. Collier & Son (1909, 1937).