Greek History and Historiography

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Article

Aeneas Tacticus  

David Whitehead

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography
  2. Greek Literature

Aeneas (Aineias) Tacticus, probably the Stymphalian general of the Arcadian koinon (see arcadian league) in 367 bce (Xen. Hell. 7. 3. 1); anyway the earlies (-surviving) and most historically interesting of the ancient military writers (tactici). Of several treatises only his Siegecraft (Poliorcetica) is extant, internally datable to the mid-4th cent. via the clustering of contemporary illustrations of its precepts (and linguistically important for its embryo form of the koinē). Concerned more with defence against than prosecution of siege-warfare, it offers unique insights into the stresses of life in small communities with warfare and revolution constantly threatening. See siegecraft, greek.

Article

Aeschines (2) Socraticus  

Michael Gagarin

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography
  2. Greek Literature
  3. Philosophy

(4th cent. bce), of the *deme of Sphettus in Attica, a devoted follower of *Socrates, was present at his trial and death. He wrote speeches for the lawcourts and taught oratory, but fell into poverty and took refuge at the court in *Syracuse, returning to Athens after the expulsion of *Dionysius (2) II in 356. Best known as the author of Socratic dialogues which resemble *Xenophon (1)'s more than *Plato (1)'s, Aeschines was apparently not an original thinker, and his Socrates expounds common ethical views. Although only fragments survive today, seven dialogues were considered genuine in antiquity: Alcibiades, Axiochus, Aspasia, Callias, Miltiades, Rhinon, Telauges. The first of these was partly intended to defend Socrates against charges of corrupting the young *Alcibiades. The dialogues of Aeschines were highly esteemed for their style and their faithfulness to Socrates' character and conversational manner.

Article

alcoholism, Greek  

John Maxwell O'Brien and Barney Rickenbacker

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography
  2. Greek Literature
  3. Greek Material Culture
The ancient Greeks were unfamiliar with modern concepts of alcoholism, but they were well aware of self-destructive drinking and the effects of habitual drunkenness. In the Odyssey, *Homer makes a speaker note that wine is a bane to those who drink it excessively, and identify overindulgence as the cause of the *Centaur Eurytion's vile behaviour (21. 293–8). In *Hades, Homer's Elpenor admits that heavy drinking was a key factor in his fatal plunge from *Circe's roof (Od. 11. 61). *Pythagoras (1) is credited with the dictum that drinking to achieve drunkenness is a training-ground for madness, and he advises drunkards to take an unflinching look at their inebriate behaviour if they wish to alter it (Stob. Flor. 3. 18. 23, 33). In the Republic, *Plato (1) writes about men who welcome any excuse to drink whatever wine is available (475a). *Aristotle's treatise On Drunkenness has been lost, but his extant works confirm an abiding interest in wine's pernicious effects.

Article

Appian  

Kai Brodersen

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography
  2. Greek Literature
  3. Roman History and Historiography
Appian (Ἀππιανός) of Alexandria, Greek historian. Born in Alexandria (1) at the end of the 1st centuryce, died in Rome c. 160ce; the inscription on a particular Roman sarcophagus (IGUR IV 1700) suggests that it may well be his. Appian experienced the Jewish uprising of 116/7ce, became a Roman citizen, moved to Rome as an advocate, and eventually gained, through the influence of his friend M. Cornelius Fronto, the dignitas (“honorary position”) of a procurator under Antoninus Pius, which enabled him to devote his time to writing his Roman History. After the preface and Book 1 on early Rome in the period of the kings, this work is arranged ethnographically, dealing with the individual peoples as Rome conquered them: Book 2 covers the Italians; Book 3, the Samnites; Book 4, the Celts; Book 5, the Sicilians; Book 6, the Iberians; Book 7, Hannibal; Book 8, the Carthaginians (as well as the Libyans and Nomads); Book 9, the Macedonians and Illyrians; Book 10, the Greeks and Ionians; Book 11, the Syrians (Seleucids) and Parthians; and Book 12, Mithridates VI.

Article

Aristaenetus  

Anna Tiziana Drago

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
15 August 2022
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography
  2. Greek Literature
The collection of fifty fictitious love letters (epistulae amatoriae) subdivided into two books contained in a single Greek manuscript (codex unicus) copied in the south of Italy around 1200 ce and now housed in Vienna (V = Cod. Vindobonensis phil. Graec. 310) has had a curious history. This manuscript identifies its epistolographer as a certain Aristaenetus, but in fact the author’s name is as uncertain as his birthplace and the dates of his career. The corpus might have been composed between the end of the 5th and the beginning of the 6th centuries ce, and its author could be an epistolographer belonging to the literary humanist circles formed in the imperial atmosphere of Constantinople under Justinian I (including Procopius, Agathias, and Paulus Silentiarius). The letters are written from a variety of senders to diverse addressees, including historical or literary figures (often professional epistolographers: Alciphron, Aelian, Philostratus, but also Lucian, Stesichorus, Eratosthenes, Archilochus, and Terpander). Aristaenetus’ epistolary collection has a dominant thematic nucleus: the description, conquest, and defence of love. This thematic nucleus gathers around itself conventional amatory topics: the flame of love; love at first sight; servitium amoris (“love slavery”); love-sickness; the erōtodidaskalos (teacher of love); the paraclausithyron (lover’s lament by a locked door).

Article

Arrian, c. 86–160 CE  

Albert Brian Bosworth

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography
  2. Greek Literature
  3. Philosophy
Born in *Nicomedia in *Bithynia, he held local office and pursued studies with *Epictetus, whose lectures he later published (allegedly verbatim) as the Discourses and summarized in the Encheiridion (‘Manual’). In Greece between 108 and 112 he attracted the friendship of *Hadrian, who later adlected him to senatorial rank (see adlection) and after his consulate (?129) employed him for six years (131–7) as legate of *Cappadocia. Subsequently he retired to Athens, where he held the archonship (145/6), and perhaps survived into the reign of *Marcus Aurelius.One of the most distinguished writers of his day, Arrian represented himself as a second *Xenophon (1) and adopted a style which fused elements of Xenophon into a composite, artificial (yet outstandingly lucid) diction based on the great masters, *Herodotus (1) and *Thucydides (2). The Cynegeticus is an explicit revision of Xenophon's monograph in the light of the revolution in *hunting brought by the Celtic greyhound; and Xenophon's influence is demonstrable in the short essays he wrote in Cappadocia: the Periplus (c.

Article

Asclepiades (4), of Myrleia in Bithynia, Greek author, 1st cent. BCE  

Peter Barr Reid Forbes and Kenneth S. Sacks

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography
  2. Greek Literature
Asclepiades (4), of Myrleia in *Bithynia (1st cent. bce), worked in Spain, and wrote on the history of Bithynia, and of scholarship; on *Homer and *Theocritus; and, as Atticist analogist, Περὶ ὀρθογραφίας, ‘On Orthography’. It is either he or the homonymous doctor (no. 3 above) whom *Sextus Empiricus quotes in the Adv.

Article

biography, Greek  

Christopher Pelling

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography
  2. Greek Literature
1. Biography in antiquity was not a rigidly defined genre. Bios, ‘life’, or bioi, ‘lives’, could span a range of types of writing, from *Plutarch's cradle-to-grave accounts of statesmen to *Chamaeleon's extravagant stories about literary figures, and even to *Dicaearchus' ambitious Life of Greece. Consequently the boundaries with neighbouring genres—the encomium, the biographical novel on the model of *Xenophon (1)'s Cyropaedia, the historical monograph on the deeds of a great man like *Alexander (3) the Great—are blurred and sometimes artificial. One should not think of a single ‘biographical genre’ with acknowledged conventions, but rather of a complicated picture of overlapping traditions, embracing works of varying form, style, length, and truthfulness.2. The impulse to celebrate the individual finds early expression in the *dirge and the funeral oration (see epitaphios); organization of a literary work around an individual's experiences is as old as the Odyssey (see homer), and various Heracleids and Theseids seem to have treated their subjects' deeds more comprehensively.

Article

Callias (5), of Syracuse, Greek historian at court of Agathocles (1)  

Godfrey Louis Barber and Simon Hornblower

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography
  2. Greek Literature

Callias (5), of *Syracuse, lived at the court of *Agathocles (1), tyrant of Syracuse (316–289 bce), and wrote a history of his reign in 22 books. It so favoured Agathocles that Callias was suspected of accepting bribes; so Diod. Sic. (21. 17. 4), who however probably knew Callias only through the medium of Agathocles’ enemy *Timaeus (2). Callias’ history had little influence on the tradition (which remained unfavourable to Agathocles), although, apart from the account written by Agathocles’ brother Antandrus, it was the first important work on this subject. The fragments do not provide sufficient material to determine the contents of the work in detail.

Article

Demosthenes (2), Athenian orator  

Edward Harris

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography
  2. Greek Law
  3. Greek Literature

Though he had many detractors, Demosthenes was often ranked in antiquity as the greatest of the Greek orators. Demosthenes lost his father at an early age, and his estate was mismanaged by his guardians, whom he later sued in an attempt to recovery his inheritance. He began his career in the assembly in 354 bce, speaking about public finances and foreign policy, and wrote several speeches for important public cases. Starting in 351 he warned the Athenians about the dangers of Macedonian expansionism. Even though he helped to negotiate the Peace of Philocrates, he later attacked the treaty and contributed to the breakdown in Athenian relations with Philip II which led to the battle of Chaeronea in 338. Despite this defeat, he remained popular and was able to defend his reputation against the attacks of Aeschines at the trial of Ctesiphon in 330. Later convicted of bribery in the Harpalus affair, he went into exile. He subsequently returned but fled abroad again and committed suicide to avoid capture by his Macedonian pursuers.

Article

Dionysius of Byzantium  

Daniel Hanigan

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 November 2023
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography
  2. Greek Literature
Dionysius of Byzantium is the author of the Anaplous of the Bosporus. This is a geographical text that uses the literary form of the periplous to narrate a hypothetical tour up and down the European and Asiatic shores of the Thracian Bosporus. He is also remembered by ancient biographers as an epic poet responsible for a work of hexametrical verse entitled On Laments. No other evidence of this poem has survived.Dionysius lived and wrote at some point in the early 2nd century ce. Little else is known about his life and career. The single biographical testimonium is a short entry in the Suda (Δ 1176): Διονύσιος, Βυζάντιος, ἐποποιός. Περιήγησιν τοῦ ἐν τῷ Βοσπόρῳ ἀνάπλου, Περί θρήνωνἒστι δε ποίημα μεστόν ἐπικηδείων (“Dionysius, a Byzantine, an epic poet, [wrote] a periegetical work concerning a tour through the Bosporus and a work entitled On Laments, which is a poem full of dirges”). The identification of Dionysius as a native of .

Article

education, Greek  

Frederick Arthur George Beck and Rosalind Thomas

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
30 July 2015
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography
  2. Greek Literature
  3. Philosophy
Greek ideas of education (paideia), whether theoretical or practical, encompassed upbringing and cultural training in the widest sense, not merely schooling and formal education. The poets were regarded as the educators of their society, particularly in the Archaic period, but also well into the classical, when *Plato (1) could attack *Homer's status as educator of Greece (e.g. Resp. 606e, and generally, bks. 2, 3, 10; cf. Xen. Symp. 4. 6 for the conventional view). Much education would have taken place in an aristocratic milieu informally through institutions like the *symposium (as in the poetry of *Theognis (1)) or *festivals (cf. the children reciting *Solon's poetry at the *Apaturia, Pl. Ti. 21b), backed up by the old assumption that the *aristocracy possessed inherited, not instructed, excellence. Important educational functions were seen by some in the relationship of a boy and an older lover (see homosexuality); or in the very institutions of the city-state (*polis), the city festivals and rituals (e.

Article

epigraphy, Greek  

H. W. Pleket

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography
  2. Greek Literature
  3. Greek Material Culture
The study of inscriptions engraved on stone or metal in Greek letters. Coin-legends (see coinage, greek) are for the numismatist, whereas painted mummy-labels and ink-written texts on *ostraca, especially popular in Egypt, are the realm of the papyrologist; inscriptions painted or incised on vases and pottery (see pottery (greek), inscriptions on) are the combined prey of vase-experts and epigraphists.1 (Superscript figures refer to the bibliographical notes at the end of the article.) Interest in inscriptions is not a modern phenomenon; already in antiquity people studied specific inscriptions. In the early 3rd cent. bce*Craterus (2) published a collection of decrees (Ψηφισμάτων συναγωγή); a hundred years later *Polemon (3) of Ilium received the nickname στηλοκόπας (‘tablet-glutton’) for his fanatical attention to inscriptions. With the Renaissance, interest in antiquities went hand in hand with admiration for the ancient literary inheritance. With Cyriacus of Ancona there began a long series of travelling scholars, who in their notebooks produced beautiful descriptions and drawings of ancient sites and the inscriptions on them. Initially, inscriptions tended to be disregarded or even despised by the champions of the revered literary sources; but when the latter came under the attack of Cartesian rationalism and Pyrrhonian scepticism, epigraphical shares increased in value on the historical stock exchange:2 inscriptions were authentic and direct and could not be disqualified as forgeries or highly biased accounts.

Article

explanation, historical  

Christopher Pelling

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography
  2. Greek Literature
  3. Latin Literature
  4. Reception
  5. Roman History and Historiography

‘Which of the gods was it that brought the two together in strife?’, asks the Iliad as it launches its narrative (1.8); early in the Odyssey*Zeus complains that mortals blame the gods when they are responsible for their own sufferings (1.32–3). Both poems however swiftly complicate any attempt to limit explanations to either the human or the divine level. Achilles and Agamemnon quarrel, Achilles kills Hector, and Odysseus gets home, largely because they are the people that they are, but gods often intervene too. The Greeks win because they are better fighters; they also win because more gods are on their side. The poems also suggest another form of explanation, not tracing events to their origins but relating them to a familiar pattern of human life. Suffering is the lot of humanity (Il. 24.525–6); outrages like those of the suitors are punished. Life is like that, and one should not be surprised.

Article

Herodotus (1), of Halicarnassus, historian  

John P. A. Gould

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography
  2. Greek Literature
Herodotus (1), of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum on the Aegean coast of Turkey), historian. ‘Herodotus’ is (in Greek) the first word of a long historical narrative, the earliest we possess. It looks back to the fall of the *Lydian kingdom in western Turkey in 545 bce and forwards to events in the early 420s, during the great war between Athens and Sparta (see peloponnesian war), but it has as a principal focus (proem) the ‘war between Greeks and non-Greeks’, which we call the *Persian Wars. We do not know exactly when it was written but some think that *Aristophanes (1) parodied its opening chapters in one of his plays (Ach. 515 ff.): if so, it was known in Athens in 425 bce. We know very little about the life of its author: he nowhere claims to have been an eyewitness or participant in any of the major events or battles that he describes (unlike *Aeschylus), but records conversations with those who were (8.

Article

Hyperides, Athenian orator and politician, 389–322 BCE  

Judson Herrman

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography
  2. Greek Law
  3. Greek Literature
Hyperides (Ὑπερείδης), son of Glaucippus of the deme Collytus, was one of the ten canonical Attic orators and was esteemed by ancient critics as a versatile speechwriter; as a politician, he was a prominent opponent of Macedon in the period before and after the battle of Chaeronea.Hyperides' biographical details can be gathered from the pseudo-Plutarchan Lives of the Ten Orators ([Plut.] X Orat. 848d–850b), and from references in contemporary speeches and inscriptions.1 Apparently, he was born to a wealthy family, as he is reported to have studied with Plato and Isocrates ([Plut.] X Orat. 848d, Hermippus frr. 67–68 Wehrli).2 He refers (Hyp. Eux. 28–29) to three prosecutions as his first political cases, beginning with actions against Aristophon and Diopeithes of Sphettus, and culminating in an impeachment (see eisangelia) in 343 of Philocrates for his role as leader of the delegation that negotiated the notorious peace treaty with .

Article

masturbation  

Kelly L. Wrenhaven

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 July 2016
Subjects:
  1. Gender Studies
  2. Greek History and Historiography
  3. Greek Literature
  4. Greek Material Culture
  5. Roman History and Historiography
In ancient Greece and Rome, masturbation was viewed with good-humored disdain. Although it was not apparently subject to the same kinds of scathing attacks that Greek comedy makes on male same-sex activity, it was certainly connected with a lack of sophistication. In line with sexual subjects in general, references are found primarily in Greek comedy and sympotic art of the Archaic and Classical periods, where it is typically associated with barbarians, slaves, and satyrs, all of whom fall into the category of the “Other,” or the anti-ideal. All were deemed lacking in sophrosyne (“moderation”) and enkratia (“self-control”) and were associated with uncivilized behavior. The Greeks had a varied terminology for masturbation. The most commonly found verb is dephesthai (“to soften”), but several other words and euphemisms were used (e.g. cheirourgon, “self-stimulation”).1The comedies of Aristophanes (1) provide the majority of references to masturbation and largely associate it with slaves. The lengthiest reference is a joke that occurs near the beginning of Knights, when Slave B tells Slave A to masturbate in order to give himself courage.

Article

papyrology, Greek  

H. Maehler

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography
  2. Greek Law
  3. Greek Literature
  4. Greek Material Culture
Papyrus, manufactured in Egypt since c.3000 bce from a marsh plant, Cyperus papyrus (see books, greek and roman), was the most widely used writing material in the Graeco-Roman world. The object of papyrology is to study texts written on papyrus (and on ostraca, wooden tablets, etc. in so far as they come from the same find-spots) in Egyptian (hieroglyphs, demotic, Coptic), Hebrew, *Aramaic, Greek, Latin, Pahlavi, and Arabic. Greek papyrology also deals with Greek texts written on parchment (see palaeography, Introduction). The vast majority of Greek papyri have been found in Egypt, preserved in the dry sand; with the exception of some carbonized papyri from *Bubastis and Thmouis, no papyri have survived in the damp soils of the Delta or *Alexandria (1). Outside Egypt, Greek papyri have been found at *Herculaneum, at Dura-*Europus, in Palestine, and one text has come from Greece: the carbonized Orphic commentary found in a burial at Derveni near Salonica; see orphic literature; orphism.

Article

Polybius (1), Greek historian, c. 200–c. 118 BCE  

Emma Nicholson

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography
  2. Greek Literature
Polybius was a Greek historian who documented Rome’s rise to power in the Mediterranean in the 3rd and 2nd centuries bce. Originally a leading figure of the Achaean League, he was deported to Rome after the defeat of Perseus of Macedon in 168 bce and became closely attached to Scipio Aemilianus, forming part of the so-called Scipionic Circle. While in Rome he began to write his Histories, a vast forty-book historical account of the middle-Hellenistic world and Rome’s establishment of dominion over the Mediterranean. Unfortunately, only the first five books remain complete; the rest are preserved in varying degrees of fragmentation. The Histories are the earliest surviving “universal” history and interweave events in the different geographical areas of the Mediterranean to demonstrate the increasing interconnectedness of world affairs.The Histories are described by Polybius as pragmatikos, concerned with political and military affairs, and have a strong didactic and moral tendency aimed at current and future leaders. The work intends not only to explain what happened in the Mediterranean and why, but also to train its readers to navigate a political and military career as successfully as possible and to bear the reversals of fortune with courage. As a historian, Polybius was characterized by his deep concern for the truthfulness of his narrative, his careful consultation of documents and witnesses, his efforts to apply reason and correct judgement, his focus on human character and action, and his elucidation of cause and effect. While not immune from political bias, Polybius adheres rigorously to his principles throughout the Histories and often criticizes other historians for their lack of accuracy, judgment, or objectivity.

Article

Solon, Athenian politician and poet  

Arnold Wycombe Gomme, Theodore John Cadoux, and P. J. Rhodes

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography
  2. Greek Law
  3. Greek Literature
Solon, Athenian politician and poet, was of noble descent but, whether or not the tradition that he was of moderate means is correct, came to sympathize with the poor. He was prominent in the war against *Megara for the possession of *Salamis (1), urging the Athenians to renewed effort when they despaired of success (c.600 bce). In 594/3 he was archon (see archontes), and the link between his archonship and his reforms is probably to be accepted, though some have wanted to put the reforms 20 years later. He is said to have spent the 10 years after his reforms in overseas travel, during which his measures were not to be altered: if he continued to travel after that, he may have met *Amasis of Egypt and Philocyprus of Cyprus, but if he died c.560/59 he is unlikely to have met *Croesus of Lydia (though that tradition is as old as Hdt.