Diodorus Siculus: Shared Myths, World Community and

Universal History

University of Glasgow, 31st August – 2nd September, 2011

Abstracts

Christopher Baron, (University of Notre Dame, US) ‘The Road Not Taken: Diodorus’ Reasons

for Including the Speech of Theodorus (Book XIV)’

In his preface to Book 20, Diodorus complains that some historians include too many and overly long orations in their works, thereby “making the whole of history an appendage of public speaking” (20.1.3). At the same time, he states his opinion that the historian must not shy away from “joining in the contest of words,” nor would he wish to deprive himself of the opportunity to compose speeches when the occasion demands it (20.2.1). These statements appear to reflect Diodorus’ practice, since we find only a handful of long, direct speeches in the Bibliotheke.

If the thoughts expressed in Book 20 reflect Diodorus’ own opinion (as Sacks argues [1990, 96–98]), then long, direct speeches in his work should hold historiographical significance – that is, we ought to ask, why did Diodorus decide to compose a speech for this moment, and by this actor, in his history? Many modern scholars who have analyzed these speeches treat them as if Diodorus copied them verbatim from one of his sources. However, whether or not it is fair to label Diodorus a ‘compiler’, it is unlikely that he lifted speeches from his sources and inserted them into his work (cf. Marincola 2007, 129–130). Other scholars who are willing to credit Diodorus with composing the speeches do not proceed to consider fully the implications of his decision to do so.

Of particular interest is the speech of the otherwise unknown Theodorus of Syracuse in Book 14.65–69, a long anti-tyrant address to the assembly of that city urging them to depose Dionysius I. Even if Diodorus largely based the speech on a version he found in Timaeus’ Histories, we still must explain why he chose to insert a lengthy direct speech here, when we have only one other comparable instance in Books 11–20 (the debate on the fate of the Athenian prisoners in Book 13).

I will propose that Diodorus includes Theodorus’ speech for two reasons. First, it marks a turning point in Sicilian history, a moment when the Syracusans could have re-obtained their freedom, but did not. This is emphasized by the references to Gelon and the Athenian expedition, as well as the ‘laundry list’ of accusations against Dionysius. Secondly, the speech exemplifies one of the reasons Diodorus gives in Book 20 for composing speeches: to explain a paradox. In this case, the paradox is that the Syracusans, despite Dionysius’ string of failures and their confidence after achieving a victory over Carthaginian forces without him, failed to expel the tyrant.

Select Bibliography Marincola, John (2007). ‘Speeches in Ancient Historiography’. In idem (ed.), A Companion to Greek and Roman

Historiography. Oxford: 1.118–132. Pearson, Lionel (1986). ‘The Speeches in Timaeus’ History’. American Journal of Philology 107: 350–368.

Sacks, Kenneth (1990). Diodorus Siculus and the First Century. Princeton. Vanotti, Gabriella (1990). ‘I discorsi siracusani di Diodoro Siculo’. Rendiconti dell’Istituto Lombardo 124: 3–19.

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Cinzia Bearzot (Università Cattolica di Milano, IT) ‘Terminology about political collaboration

and opposition in Diodorus XI-XX’

Starting from a suggestion by F. Chamoux, who highlights that Diodorus’ vocabulary “offre matière à des fructueuses études”, this paper aims at discussing Diodorus’ terminology about political collaboration and opposition.

As is well-known, the vocabulary of Diodorus, the author of a universal history written long after his sources, can be hardly assessed. So, it is not always easy to distinguish Diodorus’ specific language from that of the historical sources he draws on. For instance, as known, Diodorus’ vocabulary about absolute power dates back to the IV century, yet it also reflects the contemporary debate on personal power.

The analysis of Diodorus’ terminology (books 11-20) about political collaboration and opposition shows first of all that he often employs a relatively late terminology (this is the case of the verb koinoprageo and of the abstract noun antipoliteia, absent before Polybius), which is always found even in Polybius’ work. This seems to attest the dependence of Diodorus’ vocabulary on Hellenistic Greek rather than on the language of his sources.

Furthermore, while some of the considered words show an exclusive military significance or express, in any case, a “military” perception of collaboration and opposition in the context of violent political “battles” (f. e. sunagonizomai), the words referring to the specific language of internal political collaboration and opposition (as antipoliteuomai) are relatively rare. Both facts seem to reflect the culture of an age in which direct political participation was no longer present.

Finally, it is worth noting that, when Diodorus refers to domestic politics, terminology of “practical” significance (sunergeo, antiprasso) prevails on “ideological” lexis (antilego). This mainly occurs as Diodorus recalls events of the end of the fifth century, an age characterised by staseis and violent political contraposition involving extraordinary men as Hermocrates, Dionysius I, Alcibiades, and Theramenes.

Thus, it can be concluded that Diodorus’ vocabulary, in this particular field as in others, seems to be partially original in comparison with that of his sources, even though the latters’ influence - as shown in specific cases - cannot be ruled out.

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Serena Bianchetti (Università di Firenze, IT) ‘Ethno-geography as a means to Universal History

in Diodorus’

The first six books of Bibliotheke are devoted to mythological and etno-geographical themes, particularly the first three are devoted to ‘barbarian’ peoples, the second three to the Greeks. The etno-

geographical material is present, in preponderant way straight on that mythological, in the first three books as in the V, the biblos nesiotikè, essentially devoted to the Mediterranean islands.

In my intervention I would like to study this ethnic-geographical material with the purpose to draw from it some useful element to understand the historical framework of the Library. The sources used by Diodorus and his method of topographical subdivision in the first three books (I Egypt; II East + Scythians; III Africa without Egypt) can furnish important elements to deduce that the topographical scanning has been used as module useful to preserve the unity of the single volumes.

Ephorus had divided the subject katà genos but he had avoided the mythological stories of Barbarians and Greek. Diodorus, instead, attributes a lot of importance to the furthermost geographical areas and to the myth because trough the myth Alexander justified his conquest: geography and mythical histories are the key to understand Alexander’s history and Diodorus uses recent sources and a new geographical perspective (v. Agatarchides for the Red Sea) to write a new history which starts with the Greeks only from IVth.book.

The caps. of the the book I, devoted to Egypt, those of the II, devoted to India and Arabia, those of the III, devoted to Ethiopia and to the Red Sea, those of the V devoted to Britain, Gallia and Spain are connected with the erodotean tradition but introduce a new conception of the world that depends on the new searches of hellenistic age.

The diodorean universal history, therefore, is new and different from that of Ephorus and picks up, for the west, the stories of the Greek and the Romans for an arc of about 11 centuries.

My examination on the first five books touches particularly the use of the indirect discourse that for the etno-geographical contexts results important in relationship to the value of the testimonies (indirect or autoptic) picked up by the historian.

The value of the sources and the picked testimonies are very important particularly in the ‘catalog of the islands’ (V book): in fact we can see there the presence of a scientific investigation on the oikoumene, perhaps a map (that of Eratosthenes?) or a descriptions of islands separately considered from the continent which they were near (Eudoxus of Cnidos?).

These aspects, studied in relationship to the declarations contained in the first and in the second preface (I and IV books) can help us to understand, in a new perspective and not only trought the old Quellenforschung, the relationship of Diodorus with its sources and, above all, one new idea of universal History that depends too on the new world ‘scientifically’ known in the hellenistic age.

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Richard Billows (Colombia University, US) ‘Multiple Sources in Diodorus: the Battle of

Kynossema and Others’

Diodoros offers a detailed account of the Battle of Kynossema in 411 (Diod. 13.38.3-40.6); and of the Battle of Abydos fought by the same two fleets very near the site of the original battle in the following year (Diod. 13.45.1-46.6). Careful examination of the two accounts shows that the main narrative of the fighting is essentially the same in each; comparison with the surviving narratives of Thucydides for Kynossema (Thuc. 8.103-106) and Xenophon for Abydos (Hellenika 1.1.2-7) shows that Diodoros has copied events from the Battle of Abydos back into his account of Kynossema. How do we account for this phenomenon?

The standard view of Diodoros’ compositional method has it that he followed one main narrative source at a time, and that in books 11-16 his main source was Ephoros (so recently Stylianou 1998). If Diodoros had a single key narrative source – Ephoros – it would seem to follow that Ephoros must already have been clumsy enough to make this error. But that only pushes the problem at issue back: we would then have to ask how Ephoros got so confused. I argue that this doublet is part of a pattern of doublets in Diodoros’ military narratives, a pattern that can best (if not only) be explained by one hypothesis: that Diodoros worked with two (or more) source narratives, and created doublets and other confusions by inexpert combination of his sources: typically, he misunderstood variant accounts of the same event as two distinct events. Individual doublets in Diodoros, including the Kynossema/Abydos confusion, have been explained (or explained away) in all sorts of ways by different scholars (examples in Stylianou 1998; Green 2006), but what has been missed thanks to a failure to look at Diodoros comprehensively, is that it is the pattern of doublets that offers the only plausible explanation.

Besides Kynossema/Abydos, I shall discuss the following doublets with variants: - Athenian attack on Aigina (twice in Diod. 11.70.2-3 & 11.78.3-4; only once in Thuc.1.105) - Battle of Tanagra (two battles in Diod. 11.80.1-2 & 11.80.3-6; only one in Thuc. 1.108) - Battle of Oinophyta (two battles in Diod. 11.81.4-82.5 & 11.83.1; only one in Thuc. 1.108) - Perikles’ campaign in Corinthian Gulf and invasion of Akarnania (twice in Diod. 11.85.1-2 & 11.88.1-

2; only once in Thuc. 1.111) - Perikles as cause of the Peloponnesian War (two variant versions: 12.38.2-4 and 12.39.1-40.5) - opening events of the 3rd Sacred War (two variant versions: roughly, 16.23.1-27.5 and 16.28.1-29.4)

Diodoros frequently recounted key events more than once. In each case, significant differences between the two versions explain why Diodoros became confused and saw two events where there was only one, and prove that this was because he was following different sources with variant versions of the events in question. In the case of Kynossema/Abydos, narrative details and context show that Diodoros was following Thucydides quite closely until he slotted in his narrative elements drawn from the Abydos battle; and his general agreement with the Hellenika Oxyrrhynchia suggests that as his source for Abydos. The doublet will have arisen in the process of combining these with the different (and to Diodoros confusing) narrative of Ephoros. And that will serve as a general pattern for how Diodoros’ doublets and confusions arose.

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Amelia Brown (University of Queensland, AU) ‘Diodorus Siculus and the Historian as Traveller’

In the proem to his Bibliotheke, Diodorus Siculus claims he conducted 30 years of difficult research for his universal history, ‘travelling with great hardship and risk over much of Asia and Europe, in order to see for myself the most important places and as many places as possible.’ This autopsy and his subsequent knowledge of relevant topoi will be a distinguishing feature of his work, setting a new precedent in historical narrative, and lifting his work above that of ordinary and indeed even famous historians of past generations. Travel for research is thus key to Diodorus’ historical methodology, and also to his entire theory of history as laid out in the proem. There he further proposes that readers of history may gain experience, and thus power, with ease chiefly because historians, and primarily Diodorus himself, work hard both to summarize past writings and to follow in the footsteps of

Odysseus, ‘to see the cities of many peoples and learn their ways.’ It is thus difficult to explain why many modern scholars take this proem as entirely rhetorical, and doubt that Diodorus travelled far beyond his native Sicily. Oldfather (1946, xiii) is typical in declaring that, besides Diodorus’ residence in Rome, ‘there is no evidence in his work that he travelled in any other land than Egypt,” and there not beyond Memphis. Diodorus is thus assumed to present the geographic and topographic information of his Classical and Hellenistic source historians, having passed his own days deep within the libraries of Alexandria or Rome. Few scholars would make such sweeping generalizations against Herodotus, much less contemporaries of Diodorus like Strabo, though both quoted extensively from earlier texts, and often clearly juxtapose material of widely varying date. In recent years, scholars have begun to admit that Diodorus might have visited Asia Minor and Italy in pursuit of his research, and at least stopped briefly at unavoidable transit hubs. Yet the full significance of Diodorus’ research travel and his idea of the historian as traveller has not been explored. Thus I propose to approach Diodorus as a travelling historian from two angles. First, to explore specific passages where Diodorus makes geographic arguments based on autopsy and travel, for example when discussing the Maltese islands or the topography of Apollo’s sanctuary at Delphi. In these passages we gain valuable information about the places themselves, and we also see Diodorus crafting new ways to employ topographical data to write universal history. Second, I place Diodorus’ theory of the historian as traveller in context with comments made by Herodotus, Xenophon, and Pausanias, thus demonstrating Diodorus’ important personal contribution to both ancient Greek historiography and ancient Greek travel writing.

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Aude Cohen-Skalli (Université Paris IV, FR / Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, IT) ‘The Origins of Rome in the Library of History’

As both anthropologists and historians have shown (and new examples have recently been provided by M. Giangiulio), accounts of foundations are part of what could be called social memory, which fixes a representation of the past that a community wants to transmit, as well as the collective identity of this community: therefore, the narration of the primordia has a paradigmatic function within a historiographical work. The question gets more complicated if - as in Diodorus’ work - the ambivalent link between a colony and the past of the city that colonized it is taken into consideration, and even more so if the city is as powerful as Rome: since Diodorus lived at a time when his homeland Sicily had become a Roman possession, he demonstrates the ambiguity of his position towards the Vrbs in his historiographical project. My study will aim to bring into perspective the Diodoran position as analysed by Sacks (and furthermore, the question of the existence of a ‘Roman Project’) in the light of the fragments of the Library related to the origins of Rome (extracted from books VII and VIII), of which I provide a new edition.

The section within the ἀρχαιολογία, transmitted by Diodorus’ indirect tradition (both Christian and Byzantine) on the protohistory of the Romans seems rather limited (in two separate books entirely dedicated to city foundations in the period of Greek colonization): the story of the origins of Rome is related in seven fragments, or nineteen if one includes the reigns of the first monarchs. Exercising due caution in the study of this fragmentary text, I shall first examine the hypothesis that the indirect tradition took no interest in Diodorus’ treatment of this topic. However, a detailed philological analysis – comparing the selections made by the excerptors from the works of Diodorus, Dionysius and Plutarch

– seems to rule out this possibility, which would moreover have been quite surprising, given the strong interest that the Byzantines had in the origins of a city which served as a model for them.

I will then adopt a more historiographical point of view by examining the reasons for the discrepancy between the importance of the city and the position it occupies in Diodorus’ work: the reasons for the striking absence of a ‘Roman project’ in the prooemium of his work (where Rome is not explicitly mentioned as a central topic, even though Diodorus clearly states the importance given to Greeks and Barbarians) are to be sought within the precise context in which the historian was writing. As he was profoundly Greek, his historiographical interest in Greek matters seems unsurprising: the non-Greek domain is not overlooked but the place given to the origins of Rome is to be understood in the context of the place given to non-Greek cities, as Rome was not a πόλις Ἑλληνίς. Thus the historiographical space given to the origins of Rome most probably reflects the primary architecture of the Library, which was mainly focused on the Greek world.

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* * Cécile Durvye (Université d’Aix-Marseille I, FR) ‘The Role of the Gods in Diodorus’ Universal

History’

The role of religion in the Bibliotheca Historica is an issue that is not often addressed in studies on Diodorus. Only Walter Spoerri, in his 1959 book Späthellenistische Berichte über Welt, Kultur und Götter. Untersuchungen zu Diodor von Sizilien, has provided an analysis of the divine figures in the Bibliotheca.

The question of Diodorus’ religious outlook, in my opinion, seems essential to understanding the conception of his work: the sense of human history changes depending on whether or not the gods get to play a defining part in it. In the Bibliotheca the gods are present and intervene in human destinies; however, their presence is very dispersed and the scope of the interventions is rather limited, as the course of events is not governed by divine will, but by the vagaries of tyche. Therefore I shall analyse the different ways in which the gods appear and intervene in the historical narrative in order to understand the function and the importance of the gods in the Bibliotheca, and to what extent religion determines Diodorus’ conception of history. A wide range of gods intervenes in Diodorus’ narrative. Their ways of appearing in the text differ:

o History of the gods. In the first books, dedicated to mythology, Diodorus provides continuous narratives on those gods whose “histories” are considered part of human history; Diodorus adopts a euhemeristic view that allows him to treat the mythical account and the historical account on the same rational level. In this process the stature of the gods diminishes as their divine status is no longer the result of a difference in nature, but rather of a cultural construction connected to their euergetism – the notion of euergetism being one the principal driving forces of history in Diodorus’ view. This interpretation of the gods is neither an expression of a strong faith nor of profound piety, but rather of a rationalizing outlook on the world.

o The cult of the gods. Nevertheless, Diodorus’ text presents a world where the gods are constantly revered. The great historical actors are often characterized by profound piety: time and again great men combine euergetism and piety by erecting temples, altars, and temenoi, and by displaying their faith in the gods on many occasions. Therefore, while Diodorus

intellectualizes religion, his protagonists do not do so; this clear dichotomy between Diodorus’ own rationalizing view and the piety of his heroes, whose behaviour he praises, requires explanation.

o Interventions by the gods. This dichotomy is also reflected in Diodorus’ presentation of the gods in action: the gods play an active part in the historical narrative (especially by punishing the wicked) which stands in contrast with the euhemerism that underlies the mythological books.

My paper will address this tension between two concepts of the divine and its role in human history, and will try to explain it in the intellectual context in which the Bibliotheca was written.

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Johannes Engels (Univerisität zu Köln, DE) ‘From “Historiai” to “Historike Bibliotheke” and

“Historika Hypomnemata” - What do these different titles of universal histories tell us about the genre's development in the first century B.C. and the Augustan era?’

Given the long tradition of naming ancient Greek universal histories simply Historiai which reached from the founder of this genre, Ephoros of Kyme, down to Poseidonios who wrote his works already during Diodoros’ life-time, the question remains still a debated issue what exactly Diodoros intended to express by calling his own treatise a Historical Library. One of his important successors, Strabo of Amasia, also preferred to deviate from the mainstream tradition of naming such works by choosing the unusual title "Research Memoranda" for his large-scale universal history. In this paper I would like to focus first on the discussion about the different use of the terms Hypomnema or Hypomnemata in Diodoros and in Strabo and then to add some comparisons to other fragmentarily preserved examples of literary or more specifically historical Historika Hypomnemata works. Finally I shall adress the broader question whether (and in what way) Diodoros’ and Strabo’s specific concepts of universal history - as they are indicated already by both of these two programmatic titles - may even have contributed to a crisis of the genre after its akme in the late hellenistic and Augustan periods.

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Yuddi Gershon (University of Cambridge, GB) ‘Towards a Reading of Bibliotheca book 5’

Questions regarding Diodorus Siculus’ methodology and source selection have perhaps unfairly dominated responses to the Bibliotheke. This past emphasis has made us neglectful of the possibility of a wilful and deliberate approach on the part of Diodorus to arrangement and composition. The broad geographic sweep, oblique chronological shapeshifting, and the recourse to the mythic which shape the composition of Book 5 (the Book of the Islands) may well indicate that accusations of Diodorus being an unthinking copyist have been overplayed.

This paper takes as its starting point Diodorus’ initial focus (5.7-10) on the Liparians and the archipelago of the Aeolides off the coast of Sicily, and the secondary debate concerning historic proto-communism that has surrounded this passage in the last century and a half. However, we shall see that this deadended argument has been parametrically set within the methodological discourse that

traditionally surrounds Diodorus. If we see Diodorus as only a conduit of ‘Historical Truth’ and Knowledge, the shady mirror of other better-qualified historians, rather than as a considered repository in his own right, then we not only do Diodorus a profound disservice, but also fail to understand that classical historiography cannot be mapped directly onto our modern conceptions of what historical writing is.

By breaking free of disputes such as these and by considering the episodic framework of Book 5 within a more literary analysis, we can perhaps nurture a more productive reading. With his book of ‘little’ islands Diodorus takes on the theme of ‘big’ societal forms, structures and types. The book careers from island to island. Here amber is washed up on the shore; there honeycomb grows and men experience sympathetic pregnancy pain; here slaves are worked to death in the mines for the sake of vastly increasing their masters’ wealth; there the Ligurians have naught but water to drink and must sleep out in the open at night. By utopic (not least the description of the mythical island of Panchaea) and dystopic comparison Diodorus perhaps ventures a reading of what it is to be civilized and what it is to have one’s place in society.

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Dylan James (Macquarie University, AU) ‘Diodorus and Foreign Languages’

When Bucephalus goes missing on Alexander's expedition, Plutarch tells us that the king sent a herald (keryx) to threaten the barbarians to give back his prized horse (Alex. 44). Arrian also mentions a ‘herald’ (proekeryxen, Anab. 5.19.6). Curtius (6.5.19) notes that Alexander's message was conveyed “per interpretem”, which in itself does not suggest an interpreter of foreign languages. Only Diodorus (17.76.7) mentions that the report was relayed “dia homophonon”, which shows us that interpreters of language must be meant. Using Book 17 as a case study, this paper will examine Diodorus’ attitude to, and representation of, foreign languages more broadly in his Bibliotheke. A model for our study will be Harrison's valuable assessment of Herodotus and foreign languages (T. Harrison, ‘Herodotus’ Conception of Foreign Languages’, Histos 2 (1998): http://www.dur.ac.uk/Classics/histos/1998/ harrison.html). Book 17 affords a valuable opportunity to assess Diodorus’ interests as a historian, since one of his sources, Clitarchus, was often employed by Curtius Rufus for the same episodes. By comparison with that Latin historian, we may examine Diodorus' use of source material as it relates to foreign languages. We know that Diodorus was familiar with Latin as well as Greek (Diod. 1.4.4), so we also seek to examine the degree to which this linguistic experience affected his representation and awareness of foreign tongues. To what extent can we see the evidence for this knowledge of Latin in Diodorus’ Greek? A model for this aspect of the paper will be J.S.Ward's study of Latinisms in Josephus (J. S. Ward, ‘Roman Greek: Latinisms in the Greek of Flavius Josephus’, CQ 57.2 (2007) 632-649). Our discussion will firmly place Diodorus in his literary and historical context with regard to his representation of foreign languages, analysing the role of language contact in a history so abbreviated as the Bibliotheke and examining earlier Greek historians’ attitudes to foreign tongues.

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Peter Liddel, (University of Manchester, GB) ‘Inscriptions and Writing in the Bibliotheke of Diodorus Siculus’

Who indeed could compose a worthy praise of the knowledge of letters? (12.13.2).

Scholarship traditionally attributes inscriptions and documents appearing in Diodorus’ Bibliotheke to his literary sources;1 recent work, however, has raised the possibility that Diodorus himself accessed primary epigraphical or documentary material.2 In this paper, which draws upon a catalogue raisonné of epigraphical quotations and paraphrases in Diodorus’ Bibliotheke, I shall argue that, while there is little to suggest that he himself consulted inscriptions, themes that span Diodorus’ work suggest he made a conscious decision to maintain his sources’ references to epigraphical material and embeds strong views on inscriptions and epigraphy throughout his work. These themes first emerge in the book 1 (the chapter in which epigraphical citation is most frequent) but are maintained throughout the work.

The most widespread deployment of inscriptions is to illustrate the nature and culture of particular places, but there are four further themes that emerge:

(a) The deployment of inscriptions to illustrate the achievements of individuals, their legacy and to embed a Euhemeristic view of religion: just as inscriptions are used to emphasise the self-proclaimed magnificence of Egyptian Kings (e.g. Osymandyas at 1.47.4) or their conquests (e.g. those of Sesostris at 1.55.7), they are used to show the way in which Pompey presented his praxeis (40.4)3; they are also used to explain the deification of deities such as Dionysos, Zeus and Isis, a view which has strong resonances with Hellenistic inscriptions relating to ruler cult (e.g. SIG3 390).

(b) A moralistic and pietist approach characterises Diodorus’ deployment of inscriptions: Tnephachthus’ inscribed curse, for instance, curtailed the fame of the luxuriant Menas (1.45.2-3); a (probably apocryphal) inscription illustrates Sardanapallus’ depravity (2.23.3), while the Roman senate’s re-inscription of Tryphon’s dedication is viewed as a moral stance (33.28a); the Greek use of trophies (13.23.5-6) and the Persian war dedications are held up as examples of piety,4 all of which could be juxtaposed with Phokian impiety towards inscriptions (16.24.4).

(c) The existence of other passages on the uses of writing, such as those on ostracism, petalism (11.55.1-2; 11.87.1-6), the skytale (13.106.9), the Twelve Tables (12.26.1), magical tablets (5.28.6) and other alphabets5 suggest that Diodorus had an interest in the cultures of writing, and, where possible, introduced references to its deployment for the sake of their intrinsic interest.6

(d) A fourth theme is Diodorus’ view of them as a measure of intellectual progress: this is stated most explicitly at 12.13.1-4, where he approves of Charondas’ promotion of reading and writing: the intellectual value of writing is emphasised in other passages too (1.49.3, 70.9); inscriptions can offer intellectual improvement to their readers (9.10.1).

Diodorus’ interest in writing may be related to the expansion of epigraphical proliferation in the Roman empire in the first century BC.7 His interest in the science of writing is one which places him in the classical Greek (cf. Hdt. 5.58-9) and perhaps even the Western Greek historiographical tradition (cf. Plyb. 12.25; FGrH 566 F85);8 yet he stand apart both from the general classical Greek scepticism about the written word and from Roman contemporaries who were largely uninterested in other peoples’ uses of writing.9 Therefore, I suggest that Diodorus’ deployment of inscriptions and writing illustrates his readiness to combine the ideas of his literary predecessors (particularly Hekataios, Euhemeros and

Ephoros) with his own understanding of the intention of inscriptions to produce a thoughtful and independent synthesis of ideas about the culture and deployment of writing. 1 Rosen 1967. 2 Palm 1955 203 n. 1; Chamoux 1993 cxix-cxx; Ambaglio 2003; Guerra 2003; Lefèvre 2005. 3 Vogel-Weidemann 1985. 4 11.14.4, 33.2, 62.3. 5 2.57.4; 3.3.5-4.4; 3.44.3. 6 See also 1.16.1; 3.67.1; 5.57.3-5, 58.3, 74.1; Sacks 1990: 60-2. 7 Woolf 1996; Pobjoy 2003 8 Steiner 1994, esp. 166-8 (classical Greek tradition); Rawson 1985: 234 (western Greek). 9 On Greek scepticism, see Steiner 1994 and Vasunia 2006: 138-82; Roman views: Woolf 1994: 85; Desbordes (1990) 77-8, 135-46.

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* * Charles Muntz (University of Arkansas, US) ‘The Myth of Diodorus’

In this paper, I will examine one aspect of Diodorus Siculus’ universal history that has largely been ignored by modern scholarship, but where we can see Diodorus’ originality, awareness of Greek historiographical traditions, and his own willingness to innovate, and that is in his treatment of myth. Myth and the division between myth and history always posed a problem for Greek historians. Clearly it was difficult to ignore mythical stories, but they could not be treated in the same way as contemporary and near-contemporary history. Historians could try to rationalize myth, or more frequently relegate it to digressions, which Polybius claimed offered the reader a rest from the more demanding subjects of history (38.6.1). Myth was, at best, a secondclass citizen.

Remarkably, it is the supposedly derivative Diodorus who challenges and rejects the traditional approach to myth. For Diodorus, myth is not merely the fodder for digressions, but something that can serve a useful historical purpose, and, as he argues in the proëm, a reason for preferring his work over competing histories. In a heavily pragmatic and didactic work, mythical events and figures can be just as instructive as historical ones. And rather than relegating myth to digressions as in Polybius, Diodorus devotes much of the first six books of the Bibliotheke to a full treatment of the myths of both the Greeks and the barbarians, an approach John Marincola calls “daring.”

In doing so, Diodorus is clearly influenced by the scholarship of the Hellenistic period, and in particular the disciplines of mythography and paradoxography. At the same time, Diodorus is aware that he is making a bold break with Greek historical traditions, and so is very careful to justify his inclusion of myth. Diodorus also confronts the problem where myth ends and history begins. The most common method of separating myth from history among ancient writers was chronological, with the most common marker being the date of the Trojan War as established by Eratosthenes and others. Diodorus was very interested in problems of chronology, but he recognizes that for a universal history covering both Greeks and barbarians a single chronological marker is inadequate, and a more universal division between myth and history is needed. For Diodorus, the critical division is the availability of writing. According to Diodorus’ analysis, only with the coming of written records does history really begin and myth end. This approach can be seen in the Bibliotheke, such as in Book 1 where Diodorus heavily emphasizes the availability of written records as defining the historical period in Egypt as opposed to the

mythical section. Ultimately, the picture that emerges from Diodorus’ approach to myth reveals him as an innovative and scholarly historian and not as a mindless epitomizer.

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Dennis Pausch, (Universität Gießen, DE) ‘Diodorus, the Speeches, and the Reader’

One of Diodorus’ declared goals in writing his work was to present the history of the whole ancient world in a way that is easy to understand and enjoyable to read. In order to achieve as much ‘readability’ as possible, he provides a broad range of literary ‘services’ for his readers. It is against this backdrop that also the usage of speeches of historical figures in his work should be understood. The theoretical remarks related to this literary technique in the proem to book 20 indicate that he regards the rendering of fictitious speeches as a legitimate and rational method of historical writing, yet at the same time realises a danger that the excessive use of this strategy may become a burden to the reader and thus even involves the risk of breaking off the reading itself.

In the first section of the paper, I will try to locate his remarks in the ancient debate about the usefulness and the problematisation of the rendering of speeches in historiography (starting with Thucydides’ famous reflections at the beginning of his work). In doing so, Diodorus’ statement will not be understood as a mindless borrowing from one of his predecessors, but as his own contribution to an ongoing discussion. Thus it will become apparent that Diodorus not only adopts a mediating role between the positions of (for example) Polybius on the one hand and Dionysius von Halikarnassos on the other, but that his solution is also characteristic for the further approach to this narrative technique taken by the later historians.

In the second part of the paper, the idea is to compare the theory which Diodorus sets forth in the proem to book 20 to the practice in his own work. For that purpose, we will take into account not only some of the frequent shorter quotations of various historical persons and some of the dialogues (composed by several of these dicta) – e.g. the one between Romulus and Remus in book 8 or the between Xerxes and Leonidas in book 11), but also some of the – rather few – longer speeches rendered in oratio recta. The comparatively low number of the examples for the last-named group may already indicate that Diodorus indeed followed his own advice – at least with regard to quantity. This impression can be confirmed by a closer analysis of the content and the structure of the more detailed speeches in books 13 and 14 (e.g. Nikolaus, Gylippus, Endius, Theodorus).

Diodorus’ use of speeches thus proves to be an integral part of the idea on which his whole Bibliotheca Historica is based: to write historiography in as legible and reader-friendly a manner as possible.

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Sandra Péré-Noguès (Université de Toulouse, FR) ‘Between History and Memory: Sicily in the

Work of Diodorus of Sicily’

Reading the Bibliotheca Historica often prompts one to address the role Diodorus has given to his native land, Sicily. Recent studies have treated this problem from the point of view of ‘local’ history, which is

taken to be one of the original aspects of the work. Indeed, while Diodorus set out to write a ‘universal’ history following the principles of a long Greek tradition, he did not hesitate to integrate the past of his beloved island into this framework, nor to bring to mind its cultural heritage. This process probably aimed at transmitting a ‘memory’ known to contemporary Romans, but most of all one that was nourished by all Sicilians, whether they were descendants of Greek colonists or of indigenous origin. This paper will focus on this ‘memory’ of places and of great historical characters shared by Diodorus’ audience by means of three case-studies: first the passage of Herakles into Sicily which, beyond the mythical level, appears as a true journey along the curiosities of the island in book IV; the Sicel revolt of Douketios narrated in book XI which would be unknown without Diodorus’ account; and finally the tragic end of Hermokrates, who was one of the most important Syracusan political figures, and whose story is told in book XIII. These three episodes will allow us to analyse not only their role within the overall structure of the work, but also to examine Diodorus’ selection and unique treatment of his Sicilian predecessors. I shall end by reflecting on the methodology of the historian of Sicily and the interaction between his roles as historian and as a transmitter of a secular and regional ‘memory’.

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William Pillot (Université Paris IV, FR) ‘The Carthaginians in the Bibliotheke of Diodorus

Siculus: a Sicilian Approach to the Struggle between Panhellenism and the Barbarian’

This paper proposes a new approach of Diodorus Siculus’ description of Carthaginians. This topic interrogates the three main themes in the title of the conference.

‘Shared myths’ at first, because I would want to prove that Diodorus selects, combines and recycles ancient descriptions of Barbarians, like Phoenicians and Persians, in order to create new repulsive mythical clichés of Carthaginians as enemies of all the Greeks. Specifically, Diodorus reuses, for his own purpose, some Panhellenic themes that can be found in Isocrates’ Panegyricus and even in some of the Epistles attributed to Plato. This original literary and rhetoric construction fits with the historical context in which Diodorus lives and with the mythical picture of Sicilian Greeks united against a common enemy, like continental Greeks against Persians during the Greco-Persian Wars.

That is why the second theme, ‘world community’, is also concerned by this paper, because of the importance of the Caesarian context in this reappraisal of the ideological aspect of Diodorus’ work. Diodorus shows the Carthaginians as enemies of the world community constituted by Greeks and Romans, by mixing several different historical contexts : the archaic colonization, the Greco-Persian Wars, the Greco-Punic wars of the Fourth Century in Sicily, the Romano-Punic Wars, and Diodorus’ own times.

By doing so, Diodorus intends to make the Carthaginians play a very specific role in his ‘universal history’. This is not only an imperial and teleological vision of political history, but also a cosmic interpretation of mankind history. Carthaginians are used by Diodorus as a pretext to develop his stoic ideology. Even gods are enrolled in this rhetorical construction when Diodorus insists on the divine punishments against Carthaginian troops who are guilty of hybris.

The posterity of these repulsive clichés of Carthaginians is very important, not only in Roman historiography and poetry, as can be seen in Silius Italicus for example, but also until nowadays perceptions of Punic history, even if the traditional pejorative judgement on Diodorus Siculus as being a

simple compiler without any personal originality may have incite to underestimate his influence on scholars, ancient or modern.

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Nadya Popov-Reynolds (University of West Georgia, US) ‘Military History in Diodorus Siculus’

Narratives of military events hold a predictably significant place in works of ancient historiography, and Diodorus’ Bibliotheke is no exception to this rule. But what is the value of Diodorus’s work as a source for military history? Does he show special interest in military affairs or insight into them? And, most importantly, what is the place of military history in the grand scheme of his work? To date, these questions have not been answered conclusively, since analyses of the military in Diodorus have mainly been limited to studies of individual battles (e.g., Ehrhardt 1970, Devine 1984, Bruce 1988, Krentz 1988, and Walters 1978). Based on an analysis of selected narratives of military campaigns and battles throughout the entire Bibliotheke, I argue that Diodorus shows significantly more interest in ethical problems of war and violence than in military history per se. Military history, therefore, fits in with the generally moralistic tone that Sacks has previously identified in Diodorus’ work: ‘Broadly moralistic, the central feature of the Bibliotheke is its call to peoples and nations to act clemently and with moderation’ (Sacks 1990: 6).

Diodorus’ interest in the ethical problems that arise from military events comes through in the details to which Diodorus consistently devotes the most space. Instead of describing campaigns and battles in detail, Diodorus often appears to rush through these events, such as in his dizzyingly swift account of the Second Samnite War (20.101.5). Furthermore, Diodorus reveals, on occasion, a lack of knowledge of technical vocabulary that a truly interested military historian would surely be expected to possess (cf. Milns 1982). By contrast, however, Diodorus provides vivid accounts of military atrocities and events that demonstrate most clearly the unethical nature of war and human motives for war, such as the Carthaginian conquest of Selinus (13.57), Agesilaus’ extreme and unethical desire for war (15.19.4), and the destruction of Thebes by Alexander (17.13).

By taking a systematic approach to evaluate Diodorus as a military historian, this paper ultimately shows that there is a thematic coherence and common purpose to military narratives throughout the entire Bibliotheke. That purpose is to condemn wars undertaken primarily for conquest and glory. The implications of this conclusion are two-fold. First, since Diodorus was working with a variety of sources with different attitudes towards military events, Diodorus’ general approach towards military history must be his own. Second, Diodorus’ interest in condemning war and violence is, I argue, inextricably connected to his interest in the character of great generals and their role as the shapers of history.

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Luisa Prandi, (Universitá di Verona, IT) ‘A monograph on Alexander the Great into a Universal History: Diodorus, Book XVII’

In the XVIIth Book of the Bibliotheca the first item, after the Prologue, is the birth of Alexander and the last is the tradition about the poisoning, immediately after his death; it is the only book devoted to a single man and containing exclusively information about his conquests and his world. I would like to define whether the Book deserves the name of ‘monograph’ or, maybe, of ‘biography’, and also emphasize at the right value that the role this Book plays in the whole work.

I would also compare its situation with some other parallels of monographic topics in the Bibliotheca, in order to understand and highlight how Diodorus organized his work. Possible cases are, for instance, Book V with the mention of the title Nesiotiké; Book XIII with reference to the history of Sicily (96. 4); Book XVI with the particular focus on Philip (1 and 66) compared with the few chapters on him. I have to search other traces and I am hopeful to find them.

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Jessica Priestley (University of Bristol, GB) ‘Diodorus, Herodotus, and the Problem of the Nile’

In this paper Diodorus’ remarks on Herodotus and his Histories will be examined to try to determine his relationship to the earlier historian. The fact that we possess all of Herodotus’ work makes examination of this relationship particularly instructive for understanding Diodorus’ methods. The relationship is complicated, however, by the possibility that Diodorus’ comments on and criticisms of Herodotus are a reflection of the views of other, intermediate (lost) historians, rather than the product of Diodorus’ own independent analysis of Herodotus’ Histories.

Diodorus cites Herodotus by name eight times. These citations were discussed briefly by Lenfant in her article examining the ‘fragments’ of Herodotus in six later writers, including Diodorus. Lenfant stated that Diodorus: (1) cites Herodotus multiple times to reproach him for his fabrications regarding the extraordinary (D.S. 1.69.7, 10.24.1; cf. 2.15.2), (2) twice attributes to Herodotus an affirmation not in fact made by Herodotus (D.S. 1.37, 2.32.4), and (3) distorts what Herodotus says about the embalming process of the Ethiopians (D.S. 2.15.2).

This paper will begin by briefly reviewing the relevant passages. It will then expand on Lenfant’s analysis by focusing on the particularly troubling passage concerning Herodotus’ discussion of the source of the Nile (D.S. 1.37.11, Hdt. 2.28-34), in which Diodorus falsely attributes to Herodotus the positive identification of the Nile’s source. Diodorus discusses the Nile and theories about its sources and the inundation at some length (D.S. 1.32-41). It will be argued that the misrepresentations of Herodotus, whether they are Diodorus’ own or whether they ultimately derive from Agatharchides of Cnidus (Murray, 144-150, cf. Burton 1972), had a rhetorical purpose: they are introduced so that Diodorus/Agatharchides can present himself as methodologically more cautious than Herodotus on the problem of the Nile, and to establish Diodorus’/Agatharchides’ authority on an issue for which Herodotus seems to have been regarded as one of the most authoritative sources. The paper will end by addressing the problematic question of whether this rhetorical construction is entirely Diodorus’ own or whether it derives from Agatharchides by considering how consistent Diodorus’ portrayal of Herodotus on the Nile is with the portrayal of Herodotus elsewhere in the Bibliotheke.

Select Bibliography Burton, Anne. 1972. Diodorus Siculus, Book I. A Commentary. Leiden. Lenfant, Dominique. 1999. ‘Peut-on se fier aux ‘fragments’ d’historiens? L’exemple des citations

d’Hérodote’, Ktèma 24: 104-121. Murray, Oswyn. 1970. ‘Hecataeus of Abdera and the Pharaonic Kingship.’ Journal of Egyptian

Archaeology 56: 141-171.

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Abram Ring, (Franklin & Marshall College, US) ‘Diodorus and Myth as History’

Though Sacks and Rubincam among others have challenged the assumptions of earlier scholars who viewed Diodorus as a hack, he is not well respected as a historian. He is scorned partly because he wrote history on mythical subjects. Though he includes mythical digressions throughout, Book 4 is arguably the best place to examine his attitude toward myth, since it retells common Greek myths such as those of Heracles.

Diodorus’ initial prologue and that of Book 4 engage in similar polemic. In Book 1, Diodorus claims that his predecessors failed to recount myths in their histories owing to the difficulty of the undertaking (1.3.2). Book 4 echoes the phrase “ancient myths” (παλαιὰς µυθολογίας, 4.1.1) from the initial prologue, as Diodorus outlines the problems involved in composing such histories. He now explains that the difficulty comes from the disagreement of the sources and then cites specific predecessors who were not brave enough for the undertaking. Diodorus, however, shouldered the labor (4.1.3-4). Throughout this prologue, there are intertextual references to the initial prologue, and these connect with his glorification of the beneficial labors of universal historians (1.1.1) and with his citations of Odysseus (1.1.2) and Heracles (1.2.4) as prototypical benefactors of mankind.

Diodorus’ polemic must be viewed in context. Historically his contemporaries worshipped many of the figures he mentions in Book 4; and rationalized, euhemeristic myths were popular. Various cultural monuments such as the Lindian Chronicle, in which the supposedly historical dedications of Heracles were dutifully recorded, and IG 14.1293, which documents the supposedly historical campaigns of Heracles, attest to public attempts at historicizing myth. Numerous ancient cities were named Heraclea, and the origins of countless others were associated with Heracles. The historicity of these origins was analogically confirmed by Alexander’s eponymous foundations.

Diodorus says that two things complicated history of the mythical period: dubious chronology and disagreement among sources (4.1.1). His predecessors felt similarly. Herodotus cites three versions of the mythical origin of the Scythians (4.8.1-10.3). Thucydides recounts the prehistoric naval supremacy of Minos despite the lack of firm chronology (1.4, 1.8.2). Diodorus’ near contemporaries such as Dionysius of Halicarnassus—apparently following his example—even write histories that include myths in historical narratives, not as digressions.

Diodorus avoids strict chronology in Book 4, as Thucydides did when dealing with the mythical period, and often cites multiple versions of a myth—sometimes noting his favorite just as Herodotus did. Like other historians, he included mythical material because it was entertaining and useful. Even Thucydides found it useful to compare the mythical Trojan War and Minos to his contemporary subject, for history repeats itself (cf. 1.22.4). Diodorus was thus not strange in thinking that mythical material

was pertinent to history. Book 4 alludes to much later historical events and persons (e.g. Dorieus, 4.23.2; Alexander, 4.15.4; Lucullus, 4.23.4; Gauls, 4.19.3-4; Julius Caesar, 4.19.2), and later books connect Heracles and other mythical heroes to historical figures (e.g. Milo, 12.9.6; Alexander, 17.1.5, 17.40.2; Pyrrhus, 22.10.2-3). These cross-references show Diodorus’ personal concern with instances of history repeating itself.

Select Bibliography Burton, A. (1972). Diodorus Siculus Book I: a commentary. Leiden: Brill. Green, P. (2006). Diodorus Siculus, books 11-12.37.1: Greek history 480-431 B.C., the alternative version. Austin:

University of Texas Press. Hau, L. (2009). ‘The Burden of Good Fortune in Diodoros of Sicily: a case for originality?’ Historia 58.2: 171-197. Sacks, K. (1990). Diodorus Siculus and the First Century. Princeton: Princeton University. Rubincam, C. (1998). ‘Did Diodorus Siculus Take over Cross-References from His Sources?’ American Journal of

Philology 119.1: 67-87.

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Joseph Roisman (Colby College, US) ‘Battle Descriptions in Diodorus’

The story of Alexander the Great’s meeting with Darius’ family after the battle of Issus was an episode that no Alexander historian could afford to overlook. Diodorus likes the story, perhaps even more than other historians, because for him it was a prime example of the vicissitudes of fortune, which was a prominent motif in his history. After profusely praising Alexander’s generous treatment of the royal Persian family, Diodorus offers the following observation. “Sieges and battles and other victories scored in war are due for the most part either to fortune (tyche) or valour (arete), but when one in a position of power shows pity for those who have been overthrown, this is an action due only to wisdom” (Diod. 17.38.4; Welles trans.) In this paper I wish to show the way Diodorus’ focus on fate and valor influenced his descriptions of the battles of Issus (333), Parataecene and Gabene (317) for better, but even more for worse.

The following example illustrates Diodorus’ fascination with reversals of fortune and how it could get the better of him. Both he and Curtius Rufus report on the conflict between Darius and the Athenian general Charidemus on the eve of the battle of Issus (Diod. 17.30.1-5; Curt. 3.2.10-19). The two historians kept to the general framework of the story according to which Darius asks for Charidemus’ advice, rejects the advice he receives, and executes the Athenian, partly because of the latter’s offensive language. But while Curtius, inspired by Herodotus’ account of the conversation between Xerxes and Demaratus before Thermopylae, uses the episode to illustrate the different national characters of the Macedonians and the Persians, Diodorus highlights the role of fate in the fortunes of the individuals involved. Thus, Darius, who could have avoided losing as much as he did at Issus had he taken Charidemus’ advice, met Alexander and was soundly defeated. Charidemus predicted this outcome when warning the king that he will regret his decision to take the field. Charidemus, (whose valor the historian stressed), also missed his own chance to fulfill his high hopes when he spoke too freely to the king. Moreover, Diodorus’ mistake in identifying Charidemus as Philip II’s former right-hand man instead of as Philip’s enemy may have been similarly due to the historian’s focus on fate. To show a reversal of fortune it was more effective if the man who advised the Great King and almost led the Persian army to

battle against the Macedonians had fought in the past on the side of the Macedonian king and “led or counselled all his successes” (Diod. 17.30.2). I hope to show that Diodorus’ attention to fortune and valor similarly affected his accounts of the battles of Issus, Parataecene, and Gabene.

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Catherine Rubincam (University of Toronto, CA), ‘New and Old Approaches to Diodorus: Can

They Be Reconciled?’

Source criticism dominated the study of the Bibliotheca in the nineteenth and earlier twentieth centuries. The principal duty of any Diodoran scholar was seen as the identification of which sources its author drew upon for each section of his world history, and the clarification of his method in using them. Since most, if not all, of Diodorus’ sources were lost, this task involved a structure of inference from the text of Diodorus’ surviving work. Everyone who worked on Diodorus, however, complained about the confusions and imperfections of the work, and wished for the recovery of those lost sources. Hence the strong incentive for scholars to assume that Diodorus’ contribution to the composition of the Bibliotheca was minimal and mechanical, so that one could legitimately treat it as a tapestry of excerpts from the lost sources, just waiting to be disentangled. The culminating fruit of this work was Jacoby’s Fragmente der griechischen Historiker.

Since World War II, however, a new approach to the Bibliotheca has manifested itself: an increasing number of studies has appeared focussing on the surviving historian, Diodorus, rather than on his many lost predecessors, and treating the Bibliotheca as a work presumed to have some unity of purpose and interests. Although it took some time for this new approach to gather strength, the selection of 28 papers on the programme of this conference clearly attests to its fruitfulness.

My paper will offer some observations on the gap that seems still to exist between practitioners of the old and the new approaches to Diodorus: often the two groups seem to talk past each other, making professions of opposing ideology. Surely it is time now for us to look together for ways to integrate the results of these two different approaches? I hope to elucidate the nature and extent of the conflict between them, and attempt some measure of reconciliation, so that we may all integrate and benefit from the rich diversity of scholarship currently in progress on this much criticized historian, whose work will surely remain a crucial literary source for so many periods of Graeco-Roman history.

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Kenneth Sacks (Brown University, US), ‘Diodorus and the Hellenistic Mind’

Over the past quarter century, there has been a noticeable change in the way that the scholarly world has evaluated the Bibliotheke. Previously seen almost exclusively as a patch quilt creation built completely on his sources, modified by his own creativity only when there are discernible errors, today Diodorus’s history is appreciated as reflecting both his sources for the narrative and to a great extent his own ideas in the editorial material. Much work has already been done on key concepts in the Bibliotheke that are reflective of Diodorus’s world. In this paper, I propose two additional categories that have previously gone unexamined: Diodorus on frank speech (parrhesia) and Diodorus on philosophers. These categories

overlap somewhat and provide additional context for Diodorus’s intellectual Zeitgeist. They also raise broader questions about how we modern scholars approach intellectual history generally.

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Iris Sulimani (University of Haifa, IL) ‘The Importance of the Absence: Speeches in Diodorus’

First Pentad’

The first five books of Diodorus Siculus lack one of the most distinctive characteristics of ancient historiography, namely, speeches. This is rather surprising since the author discusses thoroughly the use of oratory in history and, although censuring the incorporation of long or frequent orations in historical treatises, he acknowledges their potential contribution, lists some reasons to justify the historian’s use of rhetoric, and even includes several speeches in the historical section of his work. Why, then, does he neglect such a valuable means in the first pentad and what may be its substitute there?

A close examination of Diodorus’ mythological narrative reveals that he generally reports the spoken words of his characters in oratio obliqua, rarely transcribing them in oratio recta. In fact, even when the discourse appears to be direct, it is not stricto sensu direct: the obvious signs of direct speech – such as First Person for the addressor, Second Person, imperative and/or vocative for the addressees – are missing. Moreover, both in direct and indirect speeches Diodorus adheres to brevity; his direct (or pseudo-direct) discourses consist of one single sentence, while the indirect contain no more than a few sentences. By inspecting these types of discourse and by comparing Diodorus’ method to that of other mythographers, this study aims to demonstrate that Diodorus’ decision to omit speeches is perfectly compatible with his statements regarding the subject-matter of his work, its genre and scope; it will also suggest that, for all his pride and confidence in his monumental enterprise, he was well aware of his limitations.

According to Diodorus, the author of a universal history must begin with the events of the earliest times. He confesses, however, that the treatment of ancient mythologies involves certain difficulties, alluding to the absence of trustworthy authorities. It may well be that apart from certain texts incorporated in poetry, he could not find appropriate speeches to put into the mouth of the figures mentioned in his first five books. His decision to leave out those poetic orations indicates that although historiography took over from epic poetry the practice of introducing speeches into the narrative, and although Diodorus clearly and repeatedly states his intention to write his mythistory in accordance with the accounts of the most ancient poets, he must have been aware of the gap between these two genres. As a comparison to authors such as Apollonius Rhodius shows, Diodorus omits the too long, too frequent and too dramatic and emotional speeches, thus following the principle of conciseness – imposed by his plans to write a universal history of vast dimensions – and concomitantly preserving the credibility of his history. Credibility might have been further undermined if he had composed orations himself; for, admitting that there is room for historians to display their rhetorical prowess through self-composed speeches, Diodorus believes that such speeches, when badly composed, might severely damage the quality of a whole work. It seems that, being aware of the limits of his aptitudes as a rhetorician (one has to bear in mind that he was neither a politician nor a professional orator of any kind), he refrained from inventing complex speeches. As scholars have shown, in the historical part of the Bibliotheke he sometimes inserts his own ideas and attitudes – such as admiration for the moderate behaviour of a ruler

– into the speeches found in his sources in order to emphasize them. One of this paper’s arguments is that in the mythological narrative Diodorus achieves the same goal by using oratio obliqua or putting a single sentence into the mouth of a leader whom he describes as exceptionally wise and merciful.

The discussion of Diodorus’ treatment of speeches in the first pentad contributes to further elucidating his general views about the incorporation of orations into historical treatises, and sheds light on the reasons for his criticism of this practice at the hands of other historians. It also contributes to further illuminating the ancient conception of historiography as a distinct genre, related to yet different from poetry and rhetoric.

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Ruben Trevisan (Università di Torino, IT) ‘Roman empire and Foreign Peoples in Diodorus

Siculus and Pompeius Trogus’

Despite the reconstruction problems of Bibliotheke Historike and Historiae Philippicae, the works of Diodorus and Trogus have many points in common: first, they are two ‘universal histories’ giving a complete account of the world history from the ancient times to the rise of principatus. Besides, it is possible to recognize in both of them similar elements involving history, geography and politics.

a) An historical-geographical presentation of the world. In books I-VI Diodorus explains the most ancient history of the world expounding the different civilisations in a geographical order, as if he drew a map: so, the world of Bibliotheke revolves around three places, Egypt, Greek Sicily and Rome. Similarly, Trogus uses a ‘geo-political’ description of the world, too: at the beginning of his work, he presents the great empires of Asia (Assyrians, Persians), then he narrates the Greek history until the fall of hellenistic kingdoms and at the end he speaks about Europe, Carthago and Rome. In his work the concept of translatio imperii appears clearly: the power over the world passes from eastern to western empires.

b) An ethnographical perspective. Diodorus describes several civilized populations (Egyptians, Indians) and also human groups who live like animals: it is the case of Trogodytes and Ichthyophagous. However, Diodorus doesn’t criticize the habits of the others, even if backward, and he seems to build an ‘evolutionary scale of human civilisation’, on which he arranges all peoples: the less developed groups have the same customs as the first men and this “bestial lifestyle” characterized the past of the most advanced peoples too. Into the Historiae Philippicae Trogus introduces several excursus about the other civilisations, in conformity with the subtitle of his work (totius mundi origines et terrae situs). A similar digression system was already employed by Herodotus and Trogus, who is a Latin writer, put himself into a great historical tradition.

c) A critical point of wiew on Rome? The Diodoran fragments from books XXXII-XL and the place of Rome in the Historiae Philippicae, that appears shortly at the end and has to divide the rule over world with the Parthians, might show a critical position about the empire. Diodorus and Trogus admit without any doubts the power of Urbs, but they don’t praise it absolutely: the Roman empire is ineluctable, but it contains elements of corruption and moral degradation (in the opinion of Diodorus) and, like the previous empires, it might be vanquished by an other people more powerful and less corrupt (so Trogus).

In conclusion, these universal histories contain a common idea: thanks to Rome, the oikoumene is unified under a sole political rule. However, this doesn’t mean that Romans are the most civilized

people: Egyptians, Indians, Parthians and several foreign civilisations, the Momigliano’s ‘alien wisdom’, are often protagonists of history and they play an important part in the cultural and social progress of the mankind.

* * *

John Walsh, (University of Guelph, CA) ‘Ring Composition in Diodorus Siculus’ Account of the

Lamian War’

In Diodorus Siculus’ account of the Lamian War, a notable deficiency of the narrative appears to be his failure to describe the naval campaign that was a decisive factor in Athens’ defeat. Many scholars have argued that Diodorus’ near complete omission of the naval war is yet another example of his haphazard approach to recording history, and the trademark of the careless epitomist. This type of criticism of Diodorus abounds. In Books 18–20 where Diodorus treats the Diadochoi, his value is conventionally regarded as much better than usual, simply because of the superior histories he consulted, rather than any redeeming features of his own work. This value is further bolstered by the fact that no other sources have survived (e.g., Hieronymus, Diyllus of Athens, Demochares of Athens, and Duris of Samos). As to Diodorus work’ itself, the consensus remains that it is of limited historical worth, and that its literary merit is even less. This paper will argue that Diodorus selected and manipulated his source material with far greater care than earlier scholars have suspected. A close study of Diodorus’ account of the Lamian War (18.8–18) reveals that it is actually a highly structured ring composition using rhetorical devices. Ring composition as a literary and rhetorical technique has long been studied as a feature of ancient poetry, particularly in Homer, either as a mnemonic device that is a legacy of oral composition or as an aesthetic feature of the narrative structure. It has been found in its basic form in Herodotus’ Histories and has been studied in detail, and Thucydides appears to use it in his archaeology. In prose, ring composition in its more sophisticated form functions as a way of focusing attention on a central and important theme in a narrative. It is my contention that Diodorus uses this latter type of ring composition in the narrative of the Lamian War, with antithetical elements in the inverted units, to emphasise his major themes. The ring composition reveals evidence of a complex, subtle and thoughtful authorial design which is at odds with the accepted version of Diodorus as a writer, demonstrating furthermore, that the suppression of the naval campaign was in fact a necessary concession to Diodorus’ choice of ring composition as his literary strategy in 18.8–18.

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Richard Westall, (Pontificia Università Gregoriana, IT) ‘The Creation of the Bibliotheca of

Diodorus Siculus’

This paper seeks to demonstrate that, with a view to attracting the favour of Pompeius Magnus, Diodorus Siculus wrote a complete first draft of the Bibliotheke in the period 55-48 BCE. It builds upon a prior analysis that argued that Diodorus was a partisan of Pompeius and his family (Goukowsky 2004). At the same time, it runs counter to the consensus that Diodorus venerated Caesar and intended his work to culminate with Caesar’s regime (Rubincam 1987; Sacks 1990; Muntz 2010).

In the general preface, Diodorus informs his readers that he had worked upon the Bibliotheke for thirty years (1.4.1) and that it consisted of 40 books covering a period extending from mythical times through “the beginning of the Celtic war” (1.4.6-7, 5.1). In what survives, however, there is no explicit indication of when he began or completed work upon the Bibliotheke. Nevertheless, internal evidence is suggestive. Except for the mention of a Roman colony’s establishment at Tauromenium (16.7.1), all of Diodorus’ references to contemporary events fall within the 50s or 40s BCE. This is rather odd, for consensus holds that he wrote in the late 40s and 30s. In analysing these passages, a distinction must be observed between those passages in which Diodorus refers to Caesar in laudatory terms as θεός (1.4.7; 4.19.2; 5.21.2; 5.25.4; 32.27.1/3) and those in which he does not (3.38.2-3; 5.22.1). The latter category, it would seem, belong to the original composition, whereas the former are the mark of subsequent revision. Diodorus informs readers that he revised his work and the passages referring to Caesar as θεός most plausibly belong to that stage of composition. Taken together with a statement that the Macedonians had ruled Egypt for 276 years (1.44.4), the two passages that mention Caesar without terming him θεός (3.38.2-3; 5.22.1) point to composition of the first pentad in 55 BCE. That finding, when coupled with the prominence that was attributed to Pompeius Magnus in the original design (40.4; Goukowsky 2004), suggests composition of the whole over the years 55-48 BCE. Mention of the displacement of the rostra in the Forum Romanum (12.26.1) and the Roman citizenship accorded to Sicilians (13.35.3; 16.70.6) should, as in the case of Caesar θεός, be attributed to subsequent revision. The work emerges as a product of the last years of the Republic.

Language and narrative form relating to Caesar within the Bibliotheke are out of step, either perfunctory or excessively slavish or absent, suggesting that Diodorus did not particularly care for the man. By contrast, Diodorus’ unusual praise of the young Pompeius in Sicily (38/39.9.10,20; cf. Val. Max. 6.2.8) and his seeming decision to conclude the Bibliotheke with Pompeius’ third and last triumph (40.4) point to a mentalité redolent of Rome in the late 50s BCE. In all likelihood carried off by the plague that ravaged Rome in 43 BCE (Syme 1989 corr: 23), Diodorus seems to have vacillated in accordance with the changing winds of war, seeking to assure the immortality of his writings.

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Piotr Wozniczka (Universität Trier, DE) ‘Diodorus’ Narrative on the First Sicilian Slave War – a

reflection of Posidonius’ ideas and style?’

Diodorus Siculus (1st B.C.), the author of universal history entitled Bibliotheke, provides us with a most detailed narrative of the first Sicilian slave revolt (34/35 2.1-48, 34/35 8, 9, 11). However, the whole Diodorus’ account of those events is, in fact, the modern composition of different fragments extracted from his original narrative in Byzantine times. Photius, a patriarch of Constantinople (9th A.D.), summarized the whole Diodorus’ narrative of the first slave revolt in his work also entitled Bibliotheke. Three other collections of excerpts, namely Excerpta de virtutibus et vitiis, Excerpta de sententiis and Excerpta de insidiis, which contain fragments concerning the first slave war in Sicily were composed at the command of the Byzantine emperor, Constantine Porphyrogennitus (10th A. D.).

Moreover, it was widely assumed that the whole Diodorus’ account of the first slave uprising was faithfully copied by Diodorus himself from the historical work of Posidonius (2/1 B.C.). All preserved fragments from Diodorus’ account were therefore included in the collections of fragments of Posidonius’

historical work (Jacoby FGrHist II A 87, F 108 a-w; Theiler 1982: F 136b-f, 137; Malitz 1983: 146-58; 159-69.). Many historical and moral ideas expressed in those fragments were consequently ascribed to Posidonius so that the Diodorus’ account became, in fact, an object of analysis of Posidonius’ historical writing (Strasburger 1965; Verbrugghe 1975; Malitz 1983; Bringmann 1986).

The aim of this paper is to examine the following issues. Is it the case that Diodorus’ account of first slave revolt in Sicily reflects the ideology and style of Posidonius? Or could we encounter a characteristic style and ideas of Diodorus in this narrative?

The methodological approach proposed by Rubincam (1989) and Sacks (1994) will be deployed to clarify those issues. This paper intends to compare the preserved Diodorus’ account of the first slave revolt with the whole Diodorus’ Bibliotheke in terms of language, style and content. Although some general attemps, both concerning the ideas (Urbainczyk 2008, chapt. 6) as well as textual tradition and language (Mileta 1998a and b) have been already made, there are no detailed investigations on all preserved fragments that follow this methodology.

The analysis of preserved fragments suggests that they correspond quite accurately both stylistically and thematically with the whole Bilbiotheke. It appears also that the passages involving moral sentiments and didactical considerations – previously ascribed confidently to Posidonius – reflect the ideological stance of Diodorus.

References Bringmann, Klaus, Geschichte und Psychologie bei Poseidonios, in: Aspects de la philosophie hellénistique,

Entretiens Fondation Hardt 32, Genève 1986, 29-59. Jacoby, Felix., Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, Leiden 1923. Malitz, Jürgen, Die Historien des Poseidonios, München 1983. Mileta, Christian (a), Verschwörung oder Eruption? Diodor und die byzantinischen Exzerptoren über den Ersten

Sizilianischen Sklavenkrieg in: Dissertatiunculae criticae, Festschrift für Günther Christian Hansen, hrsg. von Christian Friedrich Collatz, Würzburg 1998, 133-54.

Mileta, Christian (b), Quellenkritische Beobachtungen zur Vorgeschichte und zur Natur der Sizilianischen Sklavenkriege in den Diodor-Fragmenten, in: Akten des 6. Österreichischen Althistorikertages 21-23.11.1996, Institut für Alte Geschichte der Universität Insbruck, Peter W. Haider mit Beitr. von Petra Amann, Insbruck 1998, 91-112

Rubincam, Catherine I., Cross-References in the Bibliotheke Historike of Diodoros, Phoenix 43 1989, 39-61. Sacks, Kenneth S., Diodorus and his Sources, Conformity and Creativity, in: Greek Historiography, Simon

Hornblower (ed.), Oxford 1994, 213-32. Strasburger, Hermann, Poseidonios on Problems of the Roman Empire, JRS 1965 (55) 40-53. Theiler, Willy, Poseidonios, Die Fragmente. I Texte, II Erläuterungen, Berlin 1982 Urbainczyk, Theresa, Slave Revolts in Antiquity, Berkeley Los Angeles 2008. Verbrugghe , Gerald P., Narrative Pattern in Posidonius’ History, Historia (24) 1975, 189-204.

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Liv Yarrow, (City University of New York, US) ‘Reckoning with Reliquiae, or How to Read a Diodorus Fragment’

My use of the term reliquiae is intended to flag the extent to which my own thinking follows on from that of Peter Brunt, who argued strongly in his landmark article that the term fragments connotes too precise a reflection of the original text, and that reliquiae more accurately conveys the imprecision of transmission. This paper addresses the ways in which our transmitting authors, especially Diodorus, reckoned with reliquiae, how they thought with and about the other ancient texts they quoted and alluded to in their own writing. Before we answer the question “how do we best utilize reliquiae?” it is imperative to ask “why do we have reliquiae in the first place?” The obvious traditional objective of the study of reliquiae is the recovery of as much as is possible of lost works, illuminating their structure, content, and significance. The less frequently pursued objective is the revelation of antiquity’s intellectual culture, the habits and thought processes which informed literary production. There has been an unproductive tension between those studying fragments and those focused on the transmitting authors. Consider the radically separate readings of Diodorus by those interested in his own intellectual contributions and those studying Ephorus or Posidonius. I argue not simply that more attention be given to individual transmitting authors, but instead that the habits of transmitting authors be studied holistically: both so that we understand better the culture that produced our reliquiae and the rest of our literary corpus, and so that we may be more productive and sensitive in our editing and analysis of those reliquiae.

To illustrate the potential for the two avenues of enquiry to intersect and forward one another, my paper first provides a schematic treatment of how reliquiae may be categorized and of basic issues arising from the different types. This is then followed by two case studies, juxtaposing portions of texts which highlight where I see potential for new directions in the study of reliquiae. Each case study consists of a primary example from Diodorus set against parallels from other classical authors. The first explores the way in which transmitting authors cue their audience as to their own learning and authority, their place within a wider intellectual tradition. The second investigates cross-genre references and parallel practices outside of ancient historiography. A major observation arising from the case studies is that authorial voice becomes particularly clear when a classical author is referencing multiple other texts. There is an opportunity at these points to observe the reception and reformulation of classical literature and to gain insight into the thought processes which have directly influenced what type of reliquiae we have and why they survive at all.

Additional Bibliography [I have not included the major scholarship on Diodorus.] Arnott, W. G., Alexis The Fragments (Cambridge 1996), esp. p. 43. Blatt, F., The Latin Josephus (Copenhagen 1958). Briscoe, J., ‘The Language and Style of Fragmentary Republican Historians’ in T. Reinhardt et al., eds., Aspects of

the Language of Latin Prose (Oxford 2005), 53ff. Brunt, P. A., ‘On Fragments and Epitomes’, CQ 30 (1980), 477-94. Casadio, G. ‘Strategia delle citazioni nel de Iside et Osiride: Un platonico greco di fronte a una cultura religiosa

“altra”’ in G. D.Ippolito and I. Gallo, eds., Strutture formali dei Moralia di Plutarco (Naples 1991), 257-72. Clarke, K., Between Geography and History (Oxford 1999). --- Making Time for the Past (Oxford 2008).

Cohen, S.J.D., ‘History and Historiography in the Against Apion of Josephus’ History and Theory 27.4 (1988), 1-11.

Dionisotti, A.C., ‘On fragments in classical Scholarship’ in G.W. Most (ed.), Collecting Fragments. Fragmente Sammeln. (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1997), 1-33, esp. 15-16.

Fortenbaugh, W. and E. Schütrumpf, eds., Dicaearchus of Messana: Text, Translation, and Discussion (Edison, NJ 2001).

Fox, M., Cicero’s Philosophy of History (Oxford 2007), esp. 92. Gill, C., ‘Tragic Fragments, Ancient Philosophers and the Fragmented Self’ in F. McHardy et al., eds., Lost

Dramas of Classical Athens: Greek Tragic Fragments (Exeter 2005), 151-172. Harding, P., The Story of Athens: the fragments of the local chronicles of Attika (London 2008), esp. p. 48-50. Lens, J., ‘Problems concerning the edition of the fragments of Greek Historians’ Studi Italiani di Filologia Classica

10 (1992), 739-46; he seems oddly unaware of Brunt’s work, but surveys much European scholarship, and is by his own admission particularly influenced by the methodology of S. Nicosia, Tradizione testuale diretta e indiretta dei poeti di Lesbo (Rome 1976).

Most, G.W., ed., Collecting Fragments. Fragmente Sammeln. (Göttingen 1997). Pelling, C., ‘Fun with Fragments’ in D. Braund and J. Wilkins, eds., Athenaeus and his World (Exeter 2000), 171-

90. Rawson, E., Intellectual Life in the Late Roman Republic (London 1985). Richter, D.S., ‘Plutarch on Isis and Osiris: Text, Cult and Cultural Appropriation’ TAPA 131 (2001) 191-216. Schenkeveld, D.M., ‘Strabo on Homer’, Mnemosyne 29.1 (1976), 52-64. Sider, D., The Fragments of Anaxagoras (Sankt Augustin 2005), esp. p. 39. Smethurst, S. E., ‘Cicero and Dicaearchus’, TAPA 83 (1952), 224-232. Toher, M., ‘On the Use of Nicolaus’ Historical Fragments’, Classical Antiquity 8.1 (1989), 159-172.