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The Authorship of the Hellenica of Oxyrhynchus1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

F. Jacoby
F. Jacoby
Affiliation:
Oxford
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Extract

In re-opening the case of the authorship of the Hellenica of Oxyrhynchus I am afraid I must state at once that you will find that there is not much in it, at least nothing new. The few pages, recently published by Vittorio Bartoletti, from a papyrus book which evidently contained the same work as P. Oxy. 842 (whether they belong to the same papyrus is therefore a secondary question) have not changed the state of the problem. They confirm (which is important, though not surprising) the two primary facts known about the author in question: (1) that he is a continuator of Thucydides—a fact which was inferred at once from the very exceptional use of Thucydides' war-year, and which, incidentally, does not allow of the further inference that he intended merely to complement Thucydides, ending his work with the fall of Athens, as it is often assumed that Xenophon originally did; (2) that he was the main source of Ephoros for the period for which Thucydides was no longer available. But, unfortunately, they do not contain a title-page or subscription; and it does not help that in the remains of col. ii the anonymous author seems to quote Thucydides. Quotations of prose writers by name are extremely rare in the fifth and even in the fourth century, but they do occur: Herodotus quotes Hekataios for a special point, and Thucydides quotes Hellanikos for a special period, though it is worth while mentioning that both quotations are polemical.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 44 , Issue 1-2 , January 1950 , pp. 1 - 11
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1950

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References

page 2 note 1 p. 316, n. 4. The drawback is rather a serious one, because Block regards. Kratippos as a fourth-century author. But the note is also in-sufficient in itself, because in my opinion it does not do justice to the real arguments of Eduard Schwartz against this date.

page 3 note 1 Reden und Vortrāge 4, ii, 1926, p. 224, n. 1Google Scholar.

page 3 note 2 The Historian Ephorus, 1936, p. ix, n. 1.

page 3 note 3 The case against Ephoros has been stated ably by Barber and Bloch.

page 3 note 4 If he had, Dionysius of Halicarnassus could not have dealt with the δια⋯ρεσις of Thucydides' work, as he does in ch. 9 of his treatise Περ⋯Θουκυδ⋯ου, about which see below.

page 3 note 5 That there are no speeches in the few pages preserved from the new Hellencia is, of course, no sufficent foundation for identifying its author with Kratippos. But the fact has to be taken into account.

page 4 note 1 II. Θουκ. 16.

page 4 note 2 De glor. Athen. I, p. 345 DGoogle Scholar.

page 4 note 3 14. 84. 7.

page 4 note 4 Ch. 42. 5.

page 4 note 5 Diodor. 15. 95.

page 5 note 1 The supplement is due to Reiske.

page 5 note 2 Loc. cit., pp. 312 f. Both facts may well be correct, and the first probably is; but as inferences from Dionysius' words they do not hold water.

page 6 note 1 Schol. Aristoph. Lys. 1094 = 328 E 133 Jac.

page 6 note 2 §§31-3.

page 6 note 3 §§ 43–5 bear out the fact: § 45 mentions only Theopompos and Xenophon as continuators of Thucydides. The discussion in §§ 43–4 is even more striking: some ascribed the authorship of Thucydides' eighth book to his daughter, others to Xenophon, while the χαρι⋯δτεροι saw that it was ⋯καλλώπιστος, δι' ⋯κτ⋯πων γεγραμμ⋯νη, κα⋯ πολλ⋯ν πλ⋯ρης ⋯ν κεøαλα⋯ωι πραγμ⋯των καλλωπισθ⋯ναι κα⋯ λαβεῖν ἓκτασιν δ εναμ⋯ νων. Again nobody thought of Kratippos. not does Didvmus himself mention his opinion on the eighth book. But this is the connexion into which Dionysius introduced Kratippos: for him the criticism by Kratippos solved the riddle (a typical Hellenistic device!). It may be worth while mentioning that the Suda does not register Kratippos, and that Plutarch does not told about the triumphant return of Alcibiades to Athens οὓτε Θε⋯πομπος οὔτ' 'Eορος οὔτε ὔεςοphi;⋯ν γ⋯γραφεν. It is evident that Plutarch himself never saw the book of Kratippos; nor did his usual biographical and historical sources.

page 7 note 1 The inference seems to be borne out by the place which the quotation of Kratippos occupies in the criticism of Thucydides by Dionysius. Ch. 16 begins with the quite sensible statement concerning the ⋯νώμααλον τ⋯ς ⋯ξεργασ⋯ας which is apparent in the speeched (chs. 16–18) and in other respects (chs. 19–20). As to the speeches, Dionysius begins with noting the difference between the first book which is full of speeches and the eighth which has no speeches at all, although the events narrated in these two books in Dionysius' opinion—and this opinion is typical for a rhetor, particularly for one living long after the events—ask for just the opposite treatment (last sentence of ch. 16 εἲ γ⋯ τοι τ⋯ν πρώτην κα⋯ τ⋯ν ⋯γδ⋯ην β⋯βλον ⋯ντιαρεξετ⋯ζοι τις κτλ.). He goes on with the general statement for which he gives his reasons, that Thucydides throughout put in speeches περἰ τ⋯ν αὑπ⋯θεσιν καἱ ⋯ν τ⋯ι αὐτ⋯ι καιρ⋯ι ἂς οὐκ ἒδει, παραλιπεῖν δ⋯ ἂς ἒδει λ⋯γεσθαι (first sentence of ch. 17). This evident continuity is interrupted by the quotation which does not blame the place or the length of the speeches, but the primary and general fact that Thucydides saddled the relation of events with speeches. That is quite a different viewpoint, and this may indicate that the quotation was entered subsequently into a fixed context. One can cut out the words ὡν προνοο⋯μενος … ⋯πρ⋯χθη, and far from leaving a gap, one gets a clear sequence of ideas. For my part I would not deny the assertion that the quotation is a marginal note made by a later writer, comparable to the marginal notes in the Lives of Thucydides and Andocides (see p. 6), and perhaps from the same period in which Plutarch referred to the work in question. But I will not render life too easy for the believers in a fourth-century Kratippos by making the assertion myself.

page 7 note 2 Herm. xliv, 1909, pp. 496 ff.Google Scholar; cf.Das Geschichtswerk des Thukydides, 1919, p. 326 n. ‘wer nicht einsehen will, dass ein wirklicher zeitgenosse des Thukydides weder die fabeleien fiber seinen tod in umlauf setzen noch die torheiten fiber den mangel an reden im achten buch vorbringen konnte, dem kann ich nicht helfen’. I am glad to see that in the new Oxford Classical Dictionary, 1949, p. 241, Kratippos is registered by A. H. McDonald as ‘rather a late Hellenistic historian’.

page 7 note 3 P. Ox. 853, cols, ii–iii.

page 8 note 1 Iustin. 38. 3. 11 (the text is vindicated by Schwartz, loc. cit.). Trogus protested against the use of direct speeches in historical works: ‘orationem … quam obliquam Pompeius Trogus exposuit, quoniam in Livio et in Sallustio reprehendit, quod contiones directas pro sua oratione operi suo inserendo historiae modum excesserint.’ Ephoros, if Ephoros it is (Diod. 20. 1; see on FGrIIist 70 F III), took exception only to the excessive use of them, protesting against ὑπερμ⋯κεις δημηγορ⋯αι and πνκνα⋯ ῥητορεῖαι. There is a clear difference which Bloch (p. 316, n. 4) over-looked. I cannot give here the history of the discussion; but one must steer clear of the much debated question on the relative merits of historical writing and epideictic speeches (Ephoros 70 F 111; Timaios 566 F 7).