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The Sources of Diodorus Siculus XVI1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

N. G. L. Hammond
N. G. L. Hammond
Affiliation:
Clare College, Cambridge
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Extract

The source-criticism2 of Diodorus XVI has been dominated by the principle of argument from detail. Thus, if two details in Diodorus' text are found to conflict, they are assumed to derive from different sources and, if similar, from the same source; and, where a fragment of an ancient historian is found to resemble a passage in Diodorus, that historian is assumed to be the source employed by Diodorus in that passage; finally, when a sufficient mosaic of such details is pieced together, general divisions are drawn to embrace each separate detail. But this principle is of questionable value: for it implies the tacit assumption that Diodorus made no mistake in compressing or transcribing detail, added no colour himself, and could only have derived a given detail, described in a given manner, from the one ancient historian whose description of that detail is preserved. When one remembers that Diodorus is a careless and unintelligent compiler of a compendious narrative, who aimed like Ephorus at lending each book a unity, and that the fragments of the many historians whom Diodorus may have excerpted are very scanty, it is clear that this principle admits of a large margin of error.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , April 1937 , pp. 79 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1937

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References

page 79 note 2 Momigliano, , Le fonti delta Storia greca e maudone net libro xvi di Diod. in Rend. 1st. Lombardo LXV (1932) pp. 523–543Google Scholar with full bibliography; the more important earlier works are Volquardsen, , Unters. ū. Quellen d. gr. u. sic. Gesch. bci Diod. XI–XVI (1868) pp. 107–118Google Scholar, and Pack, , Die Quellen d. Berichtes u. d. Heiligen Krieg in Diod. XVI in Hermes XI (1876) pp. 179–201.Google Scholar Hereafter referred to as M., V., and P. Of more general works cf. Barber, G. L., The historian Ephorus (1935)Google Scholar with appendices and bibliography.

page 79 note 3 P. p. 185.

page 79 note 4 E.g. at 8, 3: 8, T, 22, 3; 38, 2; 53, 3; 54, 1; 60, 4–5; 64, 3; 69, 8; 74, 2; 75, 1; and 95, 2. References are to book XVI throughout, unless another book-reference is given.

page 80 note 1 P. p. 198; moreover, it is possible that the words ⋯κρέμασε and ⋯σταυρώθη both refer to Greek form of crucifixion.

page 80 note 2 Or again the placing of Torone in the Hellespont (53, 2) and the impression left at 21, 3 that the battle (Embata) took place at the Hellespont: the former can only be due to Diodorus, the latter may well be due to compendium (the fleet probably concentrated in the Hellespont and later fought off Chios).

page 80 note 3 M. pp. 531 f.

page 80 note 4 M. pp. 525 f.

page 80 note 5 M. p. 526.

page 80 note 6 Fragments are quoted throughout this paper from Jacoby F.Gr.H.

page 80 note 7 Nor, in point of fact, could he have been, seeing that he had only one year of power after his first spoliation, and there is no evidence that he coined gold and silver as his three successors did. Cf. Strabo ix, 3, 8.

page 81 note 1 M. P. 530

page 82 note 1 We have already dealt with M.'s reasons for ascribing 2–4 to a different source from that used at 1: on p. 541 he regards the account of the siege of Perinthus as deriving from a third and different source. The inaccuracy at 1, 4 is rightly explained by M. as providing no indication of source (p. 531); the same conclusion is made with regard to 2, 6 pp. 532–534; V. p. 116 considers τ⋯ν Μακεδονɩκ⋯ν ϕάλαγγα at 3, 2 and Φɩλίππεɩον at 8, 7 derived necessarily from a late author, wrongly in the former case, cf. Dem, . Phil. iii. 49Google Scholar, and unconvincingly in the latter by the argumentum ex silentio.

page 82 note 2 J.H.S. LVII (1937)Google Scholar Part I.

page 82 note 3 Beloch, , Gr. Gesch. III 2 p. 28Google Scholar.

page 82 note 4 Cloché, , Ėtude chronol. sur la trois. guerre sacrée, pp. 4–5Google Scholar.

page 83 note 1 It has been shown above that the passages referring to the ⋯νσέβεɩα of Philip at 38, 2 and 60, 4—two of the 12 refrain passages—were added by Diodorus to maintain the tone set in the Proem.

page 83 note 2 The mistake may be due to Diodorus and not his source.

page 83 note 3 M. p. 538, however, regards this narrative as written with ‘assoluta freddezza’, deducing therefrom a source ‘non filo-ateniese’.

page 83 note 4 To whom we have ascribed the appendix 61–63; it is a priori unlikely that the source responsible for the major appendix would append a second appendix.

page 84 note 1 Callisthenes of Olynthus is also mentioned (14, 3) as ending his history in 357/6: he fits no one of our sources and nobody to my knowledge has advanced him as a possible source for the early part of book XVI.

page 84 note 2 This is generally agreed: cf. Cavaignac, , Mélanges Glotz I, p. 152Google Scholar.

page 84 note 3 Perhaps Apollodorus of Athens; it is known that the chronographic source used by D. gave the dates both of events and of the beginning and end of canonized historical works. For convenience, I call the source ‘chronographic’, although ‘chrono-biblio-graphic’ would meet the facts more precisely.

page 84 note 4 Jacoby II c p. 28.

page 84 note 5 The evidence supplied in D. 14, 3–5 and 76, 5–6, which defines the limits of Ephorus Demophilus and Diyllus, makes this certain; cf. Jacoby II c pp. 28 f. Cavaignac, , of. cit. pp. 154Google Scholar f.,Walker, , Hellen. Oxyr. pp. 87Google Scholar f., andSchwartz, , Hermes XLIV 482Google Scholar f. are arbitrary in rejecting evidence derived from the chronographic source.

page 84 note 6 Aeschines ii 131, iii 148, Callisthenes fr. 1, Duris fr. 1, Pausanias ix 6, I, x 2, 2, x, 3, 1, x 8, 2. Diodorus gives the duration of the war from Demophilus at 14, 3 as eleven years sub 357/6 and consistently again as nine years at 23, 1 sub 355/4; but at 59, 1 as ten years sub 346/5: the explanation surely is that Diodorus took the duration and the narrative from Demophilus, but in quoting from his date-table gave the orthodox duration of the war as calculated at ten years. The same combination of the tradition of Demophilus and of the orthodox chronology is responsible for the error of Pausanias, who follows Demophilus in starting the war from the seizure of Delphi sub 357/6 but then applies the orthodox duration of ten years to foreclose his war at 348/7 (Paus. x 2, 2).

page 84 note 7 Dated by Demosthenes xix 59 to the last month of 347/6.

page 85 note 1 Cf. Laqueur, , Ephoros in Hermes XLVI pp. 161Google Scholar f.

page 85 note 8 Cf. G. L. Barber, The historian Ephorus; the remarks p. 143 on colour in his military narrative, e.g. for the battles of Leuctra and Mantinea, are appropriate to the battle of Philip and Bardylis and to the siege of Perinthus; the stock phrases καρτερ⋯ μάΧη, ⋯ρρωμένως, ἰσόροπος, and ⋯νδραγρθίαɩ appear in 4, 6 and εὐρώστως, νύκτωρ, ⋯νδραγαθίαɩ recur in 74, 3 and 6 and in 75, 3. Barber, however, goes too far when he attributes this colour entirely to Ephorus; for the same colouring and exact phrases recur in the narrative of Chaeronea (86,2 f.)andCrimisus(79,5 f.), where Ephorus was certainly not the source.

page 85 note 3 Cf. Laqueur ibid.

page 85 note 4 J. II c p. 26.

page 86 note 1 The view of Walker, , Hellenica Oxyr. pp. 95Google Scholar f., that Ephorus' system is a chronological division by generations, seems to me untenable.

page 86 note 2 Jacoby II c pp. 29 f. believes that the history of Philip was written as ‘the consolidation of Philip's power in the north’ to 342/1, whereas Greek affairs were to be separately treated but only reached 357/6. How the rise of Philip can be treated without reference to the Social War, covering his expansion in the north, the Sacred War, admitting him into Thessaly and the Delphian Amphictyony, and the Athenian negotiations over Cersobleptes, I cannot understand.

page 86 note 3 The predominance of Demosthenes in our literary tradition is apt to obscure the Panhellenic possibilities of the alliance which led to a specific agreement of common policy against Persia in 344/3 (cf. Philip's letter, Dem. xii 6), and was intact (Dem. xii 22) until the episode in the middle of the siege of Perinthus. Theopompus (115 F 217) marks the outbreak of war between Philip and Athens at the same point, the siege of Perinthus and Byzantium.

page 86 note 4 This evidence, so far as I know, has not been hitherto applied to this problem.

page 87 note 1 However, Jacoby II c p. 59 considers that this fragment may refer to the activities of Agesilaus in Egypt and then that the book may be concerned with Greek affairs. Upon Jacoby's thesis that XXVII is to be ascribed to purely Macedonian affairs, it is necessary that the only book left, viz. XXVI, be available for Greek affairs. But his view is most unlikely: since the activities of mercenary commanders in Egypt and the East are always contained in the Persian narratives of Diod. XI–XV deriving from Ephorus.

page 87 note 2 V. p. 108: cf. e.g. Diod. XV 90–93.

page 87 note 3 Wormell, , Yale Classical Studies V (1935) p. 92Google Scholar, ascribes the account of Hermeias' fall to Ephorus.

page 88 note 1 D., presumably for reasons of space, was pleased to omit from his book a narrative of the Satraps' Revolt and the first invasion of Egypt under Artaxerxes Ochus; 40, 3–4 shows that he had learnt of it in Ephorus, but the only incident he has recorded is the Pammenes incident.

page 88 note 2 Kunz, Margrit, Zur Beurteilung d. Proocmien in Dtod. hist. Bibl., Zürich, 1935Google Scholar: on the Proem to XVI cf. pp. 54, 88 f., and 101 f.

page 88 note 3 The general question, whether D. had sufficient originality to compose any large-scale Proem, is answered by Kunz in the negative (p. 101) and by Laqueur, (op. cit. p. 8)Google Scholar in the affirmative: I am here concerned solely with this particular case.

page 88 note 4 Indeed the Scythian campaign does not appear in the narrative of XVI. As Fr. Kunz considers the proems to D. XVI and XVII to be derived from the same source, i.e. not from Ephorus, it is necessary to stress this fundamental difference between the two: in XVI we have a factual summary, in XVII a general summary. I believe there is nothing in the Proem to XVII which D. could not have written out of his own head: he appears to have expanded the commonplace with which he ended XVI, filled up his Proem with generalities about the heroism of Alexander, and then proceeded to his narrative. That he wrote this Proem before composing the narrative is clear from the declaration that he will include other contemporary events, which in fact are not so included.

page 89 note 1 It is, of course, not suggested that Ephorus necessarily intended to cover the whole of Philip's career in the compass of one book. I assume rather that Ephorus wrote a Proem to introduce an αὐτοτελ⋯ς πρ⋯ξɩς, of which the narrative might run into several books. If we adopt Jacoby's numbering, the ‘Epameinondasbücher’ supply a parallel: the Proem to the whole career of Epameinondas came presumably in book XXIII, but the narrative comprised books XXIII–XXV.

page 89 note 2 This Proem en bloc is ascribed by Laqueur to Ephorus, by Kunz, Schwartz, and Schoenle to a nameless source; M. (p. 531) hesitates between Diodorus and Ephorus but in a later publication ascribes it to Ephorus, (Filippo il Macedone p. 195)Google Scholar.

page 89 note 3 M. only admits this in the case of 84–88.

page 89 note 4 J. II c p. 116. M. p. 542 observes with reference to 84–88: ‘È curioso inoltre osservare come l' antipatia per Atene di Duride si mitighi fino a scomparire per merito delle fonti retoriche da lui usate’; but this seems unconvincing.

page 90 note 1 Cavaignac, , op. cit. pp. 152–53Google Scholar excludes Diyllus with the arguments, (1) that a Hellenistic writer must give Macedonia prior place, and (2) that the influence of the Attic orators which characterizes Hellenistic history is not apparent in Diodorus; of these arguments the first is illogical, the second untrue (e.g. 54, 4; 84, 4). It has been suggested that the words Κελτɩκ⋯ μάΧαɩρα (94, 3) imply knowledge of the Celtic invasion of 279 B.C., and Diyllus was probably alive at that date.

page 90 note 2 Except the Sicilian narrative, which will be discussed in Article II.

page 91 note 1 Having written τ⋯ς Χαλκɩδɩκ⋯ς πόλεɩς in 52, 9 D. opens 53 with the attack on Mecybarna and Torone as τ⋯ςΕλλησπόντῳ πόλεɩς.

page 91 note 2 Bilabel, , Dit kleineren Historikerfragmente auf Papyrus, pp. 36Google Scholar f.

apge 91 note 3 Wilcken, , Alexander the Great p. 211Google Scholar, Nock, in Harvard Studies Class. Phil. XLI (1930)Google Scholar, and Momigliano, , Filippo il macedone pp. 175Google Scholar f. have used this as evidence for an early example of ruler-cult; it is repeated from 92, 5, which from its general context is derived from a Hellenistic author (as I think, Diyllus), who would only be too apt to invent what is in itself an anachronism. On the other band, the passage recording the heroization of Dion (20, 6), which is used byCharlesworth, in Harvard Theol. Rev. XXVIII no. I p. 12Google Scholar, derives from Theopompus XLI and may be regarded as reliable: cf. Article II.

page 91 note 4 They recur in Plutarch's Apophthegmata and in Polyaenus.