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The Historian Ephorus: His Selection of Sources*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

Victor Parker
Victor Parker*
Affiliation:
University of Canterbury, Christchurch
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Extract

An historian is only as good as his sources, and an assessment of any historian rests primarily on an assessment of his ability to find, to choose, and to utilise historical sources. In this regard we may, I believe, credit Ephorus, the most important of the fourth century B.C. historians, with a large degree of achievement. Before we turn to the main body of this paper, however, I must prefix some comments on the size and nature of the Ephoran corpus which chance has transmitted to us. Felix Jacoby consciously chose not to print all that has survived of Ephorus under FGrHist 70. Jacoby limited himself to those passages which specifically cited Ephorus as author of the transmitted information.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 38 , 2004 , pp. 29 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 2004

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Footnotes

*

The following essay represents the first part of an appraisal of the historian Ephorus, on whom no extended study has appeared since Godfrey Barber's of 1935. It began in an overly ambitious sketch presented to the Triennial Conference of New Zealand classicists in 1999; the later attempt to deliver a finished product easily burst the sketch's already overstrained frame. I hope later to deliver further instalments.

References

1 Preface to FGrHist, IIA, p. V

2 Fr. 5 West = Paus. 4.6.5 = Strabo, 6.3.3, p. 279.

3 Paus. 4.6.5.

4 Strabo, 6.3.3, p. 279.

5 Tyrtaeus, Frr. 11 and 12 West = Stobaeus, 4.9.16 and 10.1 + 6 (cf. Plato, , Leges, 629-30)Google Scholar.

6 Tyrtaeus, Fr. 10 West = Lycurgus, , In Leocratem, 107.Google Scholar

7 Page, PMG, 856 = Chrysostomus, Dio, Oraliones, 2.59 Google Scholar(if genuine)

8 Page, PMG, 857 = Hephaestion, , Enchiridion, 8.4, pp.25–26 Google Scholar Consbruch (if genuine).

9 Tyrtaeus, Frr. 13 and 14 West = Galen, , De Hippocratis et Platonis decretis, III, p. 309 Google Scholar Kühn, (Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, II, p. 255 Google Scholar, 22 von Amim) and Plut, . De Stoicorum repugnantiis, 14, p. 1039e Google Scholar(Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, III, p. 39, 18 von Arnim).

10 Tyrtaeus, Fr. 17 West = Choerobosci scholia in Hephaestionem, p. 196 Consbruch.

11 Plut, . Lycurgus, 6.Google Scholar

12 Diod. 7.12.6.

13 Strabo, 8.4.10, p. 362.

14 Strabo, 8.4.7, p. 361.

15 Tyrtaeus, Frr. 6 and 7 West = Paus. 4.14.4-5.

16 Jaeger, W., Tyrtaios über die wahre SPAW 23 (Berlin 1932) 537-68.Google Scholar

17 Thuc. 1.101; Hdt. 3.47.

18 Antiochus of Syracuse, FGrHist 555, Fr. 13 = Strabo, 6.3.2, pp. 278-9, knows of a Messenian War with which the Partheniae had something to do, but no more.

19 Callisthenes, FGrHist 124, Frr. 23-24 = Polybius, 4.33 and Strabo, 8.4.10. Fr. 23 mentions a war in which Aristomenes led the Messenians, but Aristomenes is quite probably a wholly fictional character who belongs to the so-called ‘pseudo-history of Messenia’ ( Pearson, L., ‘The Pseudo-History of Messenia and its Authors’, Historia 11 [1962] 409-10)Google Scholar. Callisthenes does not demonstrably know of a first and second Messenian War. From Fr. 24 we learn that Callisthenes viewed Tyrtaeus as an Athenian; but we find Strabo, I.c., quoting lines of Tyrtaeus (presumably from Ephorus) to refute this view: this strongly suggests that while Callisthenes may have known of Tyrtaeus, he did necessarily know more than the inspirational poetry (our Group 2) so that Strabo could cite lines from Group 1 against him. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von, Textgeschichte der griechischen Lyriker (Berlin 1900) 103-4Google Scholar, goes far beyond what the fragments allow.

20 Plato, , Leges, 629-30, 667, and 858Google Scholar discusses Tyrtaeus only with regard to the qualities which Tyrtaeus wishes to instil in warriors, i.e. he is familiar with our Group 2. While Plato is aware of the Helots' subjection to the Lacedaemonians (Leges, 690 and 777), he never mentions any war(s) in which the Lacedaemonians conquered Messenia although we can with probability infer such a conflict from his view that Messenia had once been independent (Leges, 683).

21 Isocrates, , Archidamus, 23 and 27.Google Scholar

22 Lycurgus, , In Leocratem, 15 (cf. 28).Google Scholar

23 Cf. Jaeger (n. 16) 538-40.

24 Certainly not everything which Ephorus wrote on early Sparta merits trust.

25 Schwartz, E., ‘Ephoros’, RE 6.1, 1907, 14.Google Scholar

26 For further discussion of Ephorus' use of Ctesias see below, part IV addendum.

27 Ctesias, , FGrHist 688 Google Scholar, Frr. 13, 32-14, 34 = Photius, , Bibliotheca, 72 Google Scholar; Diod. 11.69.

28 There are differences in the two authors' accounts, however: Ctesias, , FGrHist 688 Google Scholar, Fr. 13, 24 = Photius, , Bibliotheca, 72 Google Scholar, says that two Trachinians led Xerxes' troops around the pass at Thermopylae; Ephorus (Diod. 11.8.4) has only one Trachinian (cf. Hdt. 7.213.1 who says it was one Malian; the difference in ethnic appellation is probably insignificant as ‘Malis’ and Trachis' are not always used precisely by the ancient writers). Ctesias, , FGrHist 688 Google Scholar, Fr. 13, 26 = Photius, , Bibliotheca, 72 Google Scholar, also says that 500 Persian ships were destroyed at Salamis; Ephorus (Diod. 11.19.3) says 200. Herodotus gives no figure, so Ephorus must have had another source than Herodotus.

29 Plut, Thus. De Herodoti malignitate, p. 859.Google Scholar

30 Although some ancient authorities viewed Hellanicus as antedating Herodotus (e.g. Plut, . De Herodoti malignitate, p. 869 Google Scholar, or Gellius, , Nodes Atticae, 15.23 Google Scholar), his Atthis (which alone concerns us here as only it seems to have covered the Persian Wars) probably appeared after Herodotus' Histories: although Hellanicus' Atthis covered much material which should have interested Herodotus (e.g. a great wealth of information about Athenian history between the Trojan War and the Peisistratid period), at no point does Herodotus seem to have used it; from this we may conclude that Herodotus did not yet know the work. (See, in general, Pearson, , Early Ionian Historians [Oxford 1939] 209-25Google Scholar; on Hellanicus' date see 152-5.)

31 Charon, , FGrHist 262 Google Scholar, Frr. 9-10 = Plutarch, , De Herodoti malignitate, pp.859 and 861.Google Scholar

32 Charon, , FGrHist 262 Google Scholar, Fr. 11 = Plutarch, , Themistocles, 27,1.Google Scholar

33 Westlake, H.D., ‘Thucydides on Pausanias and Themistocles’, CQ 71 (1977) 95–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34 Ephorus, , FGrHist 70 Google Scholar, Fr. 190 = Plutarch, , Themistocles, 27,1.Google Scholar

35 Diod. 11.56.5-57.5; cf. 56.7 with Plut, . Artaxerxes, 27,1 Google Scholar (Plutarch in this life repeatedly cites Ctesias: 1.2; 6.9; 9.1; 11.1; 13.3 and 5; 18.1; and 21.4 = FGrHist 688, Frr. 15a, 29, 19,20, 22 and 23, 28, 32 respectively; Jacoby correctly attributes chapters 2-3, 8, and 14-17 to Ctesias as well: Frr. 17, 18, and 26 respectively).

36 See below, part III.

37 Ephorus, , FGrHist 70 Google Scholar, T 30a = Josephus, , Contra Apionem, 1.6.Google Scholar

38 Ephorus, , FGrHist 70 Google Scholar, Fr. 187 = Plut, . De Herodoti malignitate, p. 869 Google Scholar.

39 Hellanicus, , FGrHist 4 Google Scholar, Fr. 183 = Plut, . De Herodoti malignitate, p. 869 Google Scholar.

40 See below, part III.

41 Ephorus, , FGrHist 70 Google Scholar, Fr. 180 = Xanthus of Lydia, FGrHist 765, T. 5 = Athenaeus, 12, p. 515.

42 The meaning of is ambiguous: ‘source material’, ‘a point at which to begin his history’, ‘ideas for him to work with’ are all possible interpretations. See e.g. Pearson (n. 30) 109.

43 Concededly, this fragment provides the best evidence for Xanthus as older than Herodotus; though see also (e.g.) Suidas, s.v..

44 Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Antiquitates Romanae, 1.28.2.Google Scholar

45 Ephorus' occasional use of Ctesias in parts of the Pentecontaetia we have already dealt with above (to n. 26).

46 Rainey, S., ‘Thucydides, 1.98-118, Diodorus, 11.60-12.28, and their Common Source’, Athenaeum 92 (2004) 217–236.Google Scholar

47 For this see Badian, E., ‘Towards a Chronology of the Pentekontaetia down to the Renewal of the Peace of Callias’, EMC 33 (1988) 298–300 Google Scholar.

48 Thuc. 1.101.2; Diod. 11.63.4

49 Thuc. 1.97.

50 See, already, Holzapfel, L., Untersuchungen über die Darstellung der griechischen Geschichte von 489 bis 413 vor Chr. bei Ephoros, Theopomp u.a. Autoren (Leipzig 1879) 8–18 Google Scholar.

51 Theopompus' Hellenica presumably appeared in time for Ephorus to use them: they were apparently available during Philip's lifetime (i.e. well before 336) according to the so-called Letter of Speusippus to Philip ( Theopompus, , FGrHist 115 Google Scholar, T. 7 = Epistolographi Graeci, p. 632). Theopompus' Hellenica covered the period from 411 to 394 in twelve books (Diod. 13.42.5 and 14.84.7), a period which Xenophon covered in just over three. The seventeen attested fragments (FGrHist 115, Frr. 5-22) have left no trace behind in the Ephoran corpus; nor do we find any claim in the ancient sources that Ephorus used Theopompus. (I do not consider Theopompus as a possibility for the author of the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia—see ‘Ephorus and Xenophon on Greece in the years 375-372 B.C.’, Klio 83 [2001] n. 3)Google Scholar.

52 And also possibly a fourth, Cratippus [FGrHist 64], unless of course Cratippus be the Oxyrhynchus Historian, which we cannot as of now know. Bruce, I.A.F., An Historical Commentary on the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia (Cambridge 1967) 25–27 Google Scholar, in fact argues for identifying Cratippus with the Oxyrhynchus Historian; contra, see Jacoby, F., ‘The Authorship of the Hellenica of Oxyrhynchus’, CQ 44 (1950) 1–8 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Jacoby's own suggestion—Daimachus: see FGrHist IIC, pp. 6-7—met (as Jacoby himself phrased it, art.cit., 3) ‘with limited approval.’ (See e.g. Barber, G., The Historian Ephorus [Cambridge 1935] p. IX, n. 1.)Google Scholar.

53 For the date of the Hell. Oxy. see Bruce (n. 52) 5, who decides for ca. 374 B.C.

54 Hell. Oxy., Lon. Fr., Col. 5-8 = Pp. 19-27 Chambers; see on this especially Bruce's detailed commentary (n. 52) 77-93.

55 E.g. Xen, . Hell. 3. 4.25-6Google Scholar.

56 Bruce (n. 52) 7.

57 Hell. Oxy., Flor. Fr., Col. 6,1-2 = Pp. 10-11 Chambers; on this see Andrewes, A., ‘Notion and Kyzikos: the sources compared’, JHS 102 (1982) 18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

58 E.g. Andrewes (n. 57) 15-19. Older literature at Schepens, G., ‘Historiographical Problems in Ephorus’, in FS Peremans = Historiographia Antiqua (Leuven 1977) n. 92Google Scholar; Gray, V., ‘The Value of Diodorus Siculus for the Years 411-386 B.C.’, Hermes 115 (1987) 72–89 Google Scholar, and now Bleckmann, B., Athens Weg in die Niederlage. Die letzten Jahre des Peloponnesischen Kriegs (Leipzig 1998) esp. 196-7CrossRefGoogle Scholar, have not succeeded, in my opinion, in dislodging the consensus.

59 von Mess, A., ‘Untersuchungen Uber Ephoros. Ephoros und Ktesias’, RhM 61 (1906) 363-90Google Scholar.

60 Xen, . Anab. 1.8.26 Google Scholar; Ctesias, , FGrHist 688 Google Scholar, Fr. 20 = Plut, . Artaxerxes 11 Google Scholar. See von Mess (n. 59) 383-4.

61 Xen, . Anab. 1.8.8 and 10.15.Google Scholar

62 Ctesias, , FGrHist 688 Google Scholar, Fr. 20 = Plut, . Artaxerxes, 11.2 Google Scholar; cf. Plut, . Artaxerxes, 12.2 Google Scholar (Artaxerxes inspects Cyrus' corpse by torchlight).

63 Diod. 14.24.3-4.

64 Bruce (n. 52) 4.

65 Xen, . Hell. 5.1.36 Google Scholar; Diod. 15.19.

66 Xen, . Hell. 5.2.1–7 Google Scholar; Diod. 15.5.4 (cf. FGrHist 70, Fr. 79 = Harpocration, s.v. .

67 Xen, . Hell. 5.4.61 Google Scholar; Diod. 15.34.5.

68 Xen, . Hell. 6.4.8–15 Google Scholar; Diod. 15.55-56.

69 Xen, . Hell. 6.5.27–52 Google Scholar (Xenophon's account of the Boeotians' first Peloponnesian campaign in 370); Diod. 15.66.1.

70 Diod. 15.28.1-3 and 29.7-8.

71 Diod. 15.76.

72 Theopompus' references to Philip all stand (according to Flower, M., Theopompus of Chios [Oxford 1994] 49–50 Google Scholar) in the past tense; i.e. the work was written after 336. Given its length (58 books: Diod. 16.3.8) we should set the date of publication well after 336. See (e.g.) Shrimpton, G.S., Theopompus the Historian (Montreal 1991) 6–7 Google Scholar. Ephorus (probably) died around 330 or so: Suidas, s.v. (sic! read sets Ephorus' floruit in 408-405. Suidas, s.v. , views Theopompus and Ephorus as contemporaries and sets Theopompus' floruit , ‘in the Athenians’ year of anarchy [i.e. 404 B.C.], during the 93rd Olympiad [i.e. 408-405 B.C.], just as Ephorus also'. Eudocia, p. 372 Flach (= Anecdota Graeca Villoison, I, p. 230) writes . ‘Theopompus floruit during the time of the anarchy in Athens [i.e. 404 B.C.]; during the 103rd Olympiad [i.e. 368-365 B.C.]“. The comparison with Suidas' text shows that Eudocia miswrote for the correct . The minor inconsistency between the ‘the year of anarchy’ and the ‘93rd Olympiad’ we can probably ignore: either date is far too early if Ephorus was to be a pupil of Iocrates (as ancient scholarship with near unanimity maintained [e.g. Cicero, , De Oratore, 2.57 Google Scholar and 94; Orator, 172]; whether correctly or not matters little in this context—the opinion's plausibility rested on its chronological possibility). Isocrates at any rate lived from 436 to 338; anyone alleged as his pupil should have ‘flourished’ a couple decades into the fourth century at the earliest I consider it just possible that our biographical sources in this particular case confused the floruit with the date of birth though, clearly, we cannot rule out other causes of the error. Ephorus seems to have lived to see the beginning of Alexander's campaign in 334 ( Ephorus, , FGrHist 670 Google Scholar, T 6 = Plutarch, , De Stoicorum repugnantiis, p. 1043 Google Scholar) and to have been engaged in finishing his work as he died ( Ephorus, , FGrHist 70 Google Scholar, T 9a = Diod. 16.14.3); he may have died shortly after Alexander left Europe. This would square with a date of birth towards the very end of the fifth century with a floruit in the 360's commensurate with his allegedly being a pupil of Isocrates' (and where, ironically, Eudocia's error of transcription would place it).

73 E.g. Jacoby, F., ‘Kallisthenes’, RE 10.2, 1919, p. 1706 Google Scholar; id., FGrHist, II C, Berlin 1926, p. 31; Barber (n. 52) 131-3; Schepens (n. 58) 131; Stylianou, P.J., An Historical Commentary on Diodorus Siculus Book 15 (Oxford 1998) 104-5Google Scholar. That Callisthenes' Hellenica preceded Ephorus' work was established by Niese, B., ‘Wann hat Ephoros sein Geschichtswerk geschrieben?’ Hermes 44 (1909) 170-8Google Scholar. The old argument that Ephorus published his work (at least in part) book by book rather than all at once is entirely ad hoc and has no basis in any evidence whatsoever.

74 It really will not do to argue, as Jacoby does, ‘es spricht viel dafur, in K[allisthenes] eine der Quellen des Ephoros … fur die Partie vom Antalkidasfrieden bis zum Beginne des Phok-ischen Krieges … zu sehen, zumal er [d.i. Ephoros] Xenophon sicher nicht… Theopomp schwerlich starker herangezogen hat.’ When Jacoby leaves off generalising, and instead compares the two authors directly, he frequently offers a different judgement: FGrHist IIC, p. 63 (to Fr. 106), pointing out the difference between Callisthenes, FGrHist 124, Fr. 16 = Plutarch, Cimon, 13.4, and Ephorus (Diod. 12.4.5 and 26.2) on the Peace of Callias; FGrHist HC, p. 66 (to Fr. 116), ‘jedenfalls ist Ephoros nicht von Isokrates abhangig, auch nicht von Kallisthenes’.

75 Ephorus, , FGrHist 70 Google Scholar, Fr. 226 = Plut, . Camillus, 19.7 Google Scholar; Callisthenes, , FGrHist 124 Google Scholar, Fr. 10 = Euripides, Schol., Hecuba, 910 Google Scholar. For discussion of the problems involved with this see Jacoby, F., Das Marmor Parium (Berlin 1904) 148-9.Google Scholar

76 This becomes clear not only from the discussion of the Euripides Scholium (see preceding note), but also from Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, 1.21.104.1Google Scholar = Eusebius, , Praeparatio Euangelica, 10.12, p. 492 Google Scholar B, who attributes this dating based on the Little Iliad in particular to (‘some of those who have written on Athenian history’), and from Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiquitates Romanae, 1.63.1, who says … (‘that the Athenians maintain this date’). Hellanicus, however, argued for the 12th of Thargelion (FGrHist 4, Fr. 152 = Clement, I.c., and Tzetzes, , Posthomerica, 770 Google Scholar).

77 Thus Polybius, 2.41.7; Strabo, 1.3.18, p. 59; cf. Aelian, , De natura animalium, 11.19 Google Scholar. Many confused the issue and spoke of the sea drinking both cities instead of only Helice; not just Callisthenes and Ephorus (provided the mistake be not the elder Seneca's, to whom we owe our knowledge of Callisthenes' and Ephorus' accounts of this matter—references below), but also e.g. Ps.- Aristotle, , De mundo, p. 396a Google Scholar; Philo, , De aeternitate mundi, 140 Google Scholar (claiming that the sea also engulfed Aegeira on the same occasion). It will not do to argue that this type of mistake is significant (as does Stylianou [n. 72] 377-8—attempting to overturn Jacoby's careful verdict: ‘die Benutzung K.s durch Ephorus ist mindestens nicht unmöglich’).

78 Callisthenes, , FGrHist 124 Google Scholar, Fr. 19 = Seneca, , Naturales Quaestiones, 6.23 Google Scholar.

79 Callisthenes, , FGrHist 124 Google Scholar, FIT. 20-21 = Seneca, , Naturales Quaestiones, 6.26.3 Google Scholar and 7.5.3 respectively.

80 Diod. 15.48.4.

81 Aristotle, , Meterologica, 1.6, p. 343b18 Google Scholar (cited by Seneca, , Naturales Quaestiones, 7.5.4)Google Scholar.

82 Ephorus, , FGrHist 70 Google Scholar, Fr. 212 = Seneca, , Naturales Quaestiones, 7.16.2.Google Scholar

83 Diod. 15.43.4; Callisthenes, , FGrHist 124 Google Scholar, Fr. 12.

84 The verbal echo between Diod. 15.20.2 and Polybius, 4.27.4 points towards Ephorus, not Callisthenes (otherwise Stylianou [n. 72] 224).

85 Diod. 12.4.5 and 26.2, vs. Callisthenes, , FGrHist 124 Google Scholar, Fr. 16 = Plut, . Cimon, 13.4.Google Scholar

86 Diod. 15.37, cf. 81.2, and Callisthenes, , FGrHist 124 Google Scholar, Fr. 18 = Plut, . Pelopidas, 17 Google Scholar, respectively. Either Callisthenes or Ephorus also specified that two Lacedaemonian morai were present; Plutarch has deduced from the indicated troop strengths that Callisthenes thought that 700 made a mora, Ephorus 500. Plutarch also cites Polybius (Fr. 60 Büttner-Wobst) that there were 900 in a Lacedaemonian mora. Polybius in no attested portion of his work ever had occasion to refer to the affair at Tegyra, but must somewhere have stated—referring no doubt to his own day—that a mora in Lacedaemon had 900 men.

87 Strabo, 8.4.10, p. 362 (cf. 4.7, p. 361 which shows that Strabo or his immediate source did have Ephorus in front of him as he composed this section). The lines of Tyrtaeus are quoted in refutation both of Philochorus and of Callisthenes. Since Philochorus wrote after Ephorus, these lines, although they utilise what Ephorus had compiled, must have been composed by someone later than Ephorus, i.e. Strabo or his source. In short, these lines do not show that Ephorus knew or used Callisthenes.

88 Callisthenes, , FGrHist 124 Google Scholar, Fr. 23 = Polybius, 4.33.

89 Callisthenes, , FGrHist 124 Google Scholar, Fr. 13 = Athenaeus, 10.75, p. 452. Diodorus' account for 364 comes at 15.77-78.

90 Eusebium, Porphyry apud, Praeparatio Euangelica, 10.3, p. 464B Google Scholar = Ephorus, , FGrHist 70, T. 17.Google Scholar

91 Eusebium, Porphyry apud, Praeparatio Euangelica, 10.3, p. 466 B Google Scholar = Hecataeus, , FGrHist I Google Scholar, Fr. 324 (= T. 22).

92 E.g. Hecataeus, , FGrHist 1 Google Scholar, Fr. 305 = Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. , compared to Hdt. 2.156; or Hecataeus, , FGrHist 1 Google Scholar, Fr. 302a = Diod. 1.37.1, compared to Hdt. 2.19; see also Arrian, , Anabasis, 5.6.5 Google Scholar (cf. Hdt. 2.5) = FGrHist 1, Fr. 301, which clearly implies that while both Hecataeus and Herodotus called Egypt , Hecataeus only used the phrase, whereas Herodotus provided information to justify its use.

93 N.b. the warning words of Strasburger, H., ‘Umblick im Trümmerfeld der griechischen Geschichtsüberlieferung’, in FS Peremans = Historiographia Antiqua (Leuven 1977) 21-6 Google Scholar( Ges. Schhften, III, 188-92)Google Scholar.

94 FGrHist 324, Fr. 50 = Scholiast to Aristides, Panathenaeic Oration, p. 278 Dindorf.

95 Diod. 15.20.2.

96 Parker (n. 51) 353-68, and ‘Sparta, Amyntas, and the Olynthians in 383 B.C. A comparison of Xenophon and Diodorus’, RhM 146 (2003) 113-37Google Scholar.

97 Diod. 11.11.6.

98 Ephorus, , FGrHist 70 Google Scholar, Fr. 122 = Strabo, 10.3.2.

99 Ephorus, , FGrHist 70 Google Scholar, Fr. 199 = Diod. 13.41.

100 Polybius, 13.3.4 and Strabo, 10.1.12-13, p. 448. On this see Parker, V., Untersuchungen zum Lelantischen Krieg und verwandten Problemen der griechischen Frühgeschichte (Stuttgart 1997) 100-1Google Scholar.

101 See FGrHist 423.

102 FGrHist70, Frr. 1 and 97-103.

103 Ephorus, , FGrHist 70 Google Scholar, Fr. 199 = Diod. 13.41.

104 Hdt. 6.127.3.

105 Ephorus, , FGrHist 70 Google Scholar, Frr. 115 and 176 = Strabo, 8.3.33, p. 358, and 8.6.16, p. 376.

106 Hdt. 6.127.3. For the date of Cleisthenes of Sicyon see Parker, V., ‘The Dates of the Orthagorids of Sicyon’, Tyche 7 (1992) 167.Google Scholar

107 Ephorus, , FGrHist 70 Google Scholar, Fr. 115 = Strabo, 8.3.33, p. 358: Pheidon belongs in the tenth gener-ation after Temenus, one of the three Heraclid brothers who seized the Peloponnese in the so-called Dorian Invasion. Since Ephorus dated the return of the Heraclids to 735 years before Alexander invaded Persia (FGrHist 70, Fr. 223 = Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, , 1.139.3–4 Google Scholar), Temenus' floruit belongs in the year 1039 B.C. Ten generations after Temenus, assuming that Ephorus set three generations at one hundred years, bring us to the mid-eighth century B.C. for Pheidon's floruit. For speculation on how Ephorus (or his authority) arrived at such a dating of Pheidon see Kõiv, M., ‘The Dating of Pheidon in Antiquity’, Klio 83 (2001)327-47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

108 We have made no attempt in this essay to identify the numerous local chronicles and the like which Ephorus may have consulted. We have merely been concerned with identifying the main narrative guides.

109 Nicolaus of Damascus, FGrHist 90, 57–60.Google Scholar

110 Jacoby, F., FGrHist, Vol. IIC, pp. 248-50Google Scholar.

111 E.g. the position of Periander's son Evagoras as the Oecist of Potidaea: Nicolaus of Damascus, FGrHist 90 Google Scholar, Fr. 59, 1. (The Oecist, when he died, received heroic honours in the colony which he had founded; so Ephorus could well have obtained the name of Potidaea's Oecist from a still extant founder-cult.)

112 E.g. the story of Cypselus' father taking the boy into exile to Olympia and then Cleonae in order to evade the Bacchiads' wrath ( Nicolaus of Damascus, FGrHist 90 Google Scholar, Fr. 57,3) is, as e.g. Salmon, J., Wealthy Corinth (Oxford 1984) 189 Google Scholar, has stated, rationalising invention following from the fairy-tale motif of a future ruler's survival of enemies' attempts to kill him (for the motif in purer form see Hdt. 5.92 ; for the motif in regard to other rulers cf. Exodus 1-3 [Moses]; Hdt. 1.107-13 [Cyrus the Great]; from mediæval romances the eponymous heroes of Havelock the Dane and Horn [two fictional kings exiled as children]).

113 Lewis, DM., ‘Ithome Again’, Historia 2 (1953-1954)417.Google Scholar

114 Bruce (n. 73) 20.

115 Barber (n. 52) 158.

116 Schwarz, , ‘Ephoros’, RE, 6.1, 1907, p. 10.Google Scholar

117 Barber (n. 52) 126.

118 Starr, C.G., Essays on Ancient History (Leiden 1979) 148-9Google Scholar.

119 Cf. Diod. 11.56 ff. with Ephorus, , FGrHist 70 Google Scholar, Fr. 191 = POxy XIII 1610, Fr. 1.

120 Diod. 15.76.3 is a one-sentence summary of what clearly had been a full treatment of the common peace of 366 as later references to it (15.81.3 and 90.3) show.

121 Thus at 11.81.4-82.5 Diodorus mistook Ephorus' proleptic mention of the battle of Oenophyta for an account of a second battle (which, curiously, all other historians had overlooked until Diodorus of Sicily discovered it). The real battle is discussed in Diod. 11.83.

122 Cf.Diod. 14.92.3 with 15.19.2; for discussion see Parker(n. 96) 127-132.

123 Ephorus, while discussing the siege of Thasos in ca. 465 also proleptically mentioned the siege of Aegina (presumably as a comparandum). But he later dealt with the siege of Aegina in its actual historical context as well. Diodorus failed to notice that Ephorus had described the same event twice and accordingly produced two sieges: Diod. 11.70.2-3 (for the year 464/3) and Diod. 11.78.3-4 (for the year 459/8). For the chronology of the period involved see Badian (n. 47) 289-320, and Parker, , ‘The Chronology of the Pentecontaetia from 465 to 456’, Athenaeum 81 (1993) 129-47Google Scholar.

124 See esp. Kolbe, W., ‘Diodors Wert für die Geschichte der Pentakontaetie’, Hermes 72 (1937) 241-69Google Scholar. The arbitrariness appears best when Diodorus will not even bother to add. At 11.63.4-64.4 he mentions the beginning of the Helots' revolt under the year 469/8 and states that it lasted for ten years. We expect the war, then, to end in 459/8; but Diodorus tells of the end in 456/5 at 11.84.7-8. Likewise, Diodorus at 16.7.3 mentioned the beginning of the Social War in 358/7 and says it lasted three years. He tells of its end not under 355/4, but under 356/5 at 16.22.2 and states that it had lasted for four years.

125 Diodorus complicates matters here with four passages (relating to the West) in which he pointedly cites both Ephorus and Timaeus: Diod. 13.54.5; 60.5; 80.5; 14.54.5-6. On the other hand in these sections he brings four citations of Timaeus alone: Diod. 13.82.6; 83.2; 85.3; 108.4. Ephorus, on the other hand, he never cites alone with regard to the West. At 13.54.5 he notes the difference in the numbers of the Carthaginian troops between Ephorus (more than 200,000) and Timaeus (about 100,000). In the ensuing narrative Hannibal leaves 40,000 troops behind, but gains 20,000 additional troops from the Sicels and Sicans (Diod. 13.59.6). He then has 80,000 at the siege of Himera (Diod. 13.60.3). 80,000 − 20,000 + 40,000 = 100,000. As has long been noted, the troop strengths within the narrative agree with those given by Timaeus, not Ephorus. Diodorus, therefore, was copying out Timaeus. At Diod. 14.54.5-6 we learn that Ephorus gives the strength of the Carthaginian fleet at 1,000 ships all told. Yet at Diod. 14.56.1 the Carthaginians have only 600 ships and at 14.59.7 only 500. Again, Diodorus is not following Ephorus, but someone else who can only be Timaeus. Finally, we have the direct correspondence between Diod. 13.82.8 and Aelian, , Varia Historia, 12.29 Google Scholar where Timaeus is cited à propos of the Acragantines' luxury (see FGrHist 566, Fr. 26). Diodorus copied the Sicilian sections of these books from Timaeus.