Diodorus Siculus lived during the time of Julius Caesar. He is considered an ancient Greek historian. The work of his life called "Historical Library" is used by modern researchers of the past as the main source of information. What is known about the historian of antiquity and his outstanding work?
Information about the life of Diodorus
Diodorus Siculus was originally from a Sicilian place called Agiri. He lived in the period 90-30 years. BC.
He stayed in Rome for a long time, visited a significant part of Europe and Asia. Approximately in the 50s BC, he visited Egypt. Diodorus Siculus mentions Egypt in an unflattering manner. He described the massacre of a mob with a Roman citizen who accidentally killed a cat - a sacred animal of that region. It happened in the 180th Olympiad.
He created his main work for thirty years. He sought to make world history. The writer had a high opinion of the work of historians. I thought they were good for people.
Once Diodorus Siculus, whose biography contains very little information, decided to collect information from all over the world and present it as the history of an entire state, from ancient times to his time.
Sources for the Historical Library
For a long time it was believed that Diodorus used for his work on Greek history only information taken from Ephorus. Today, the opinions of researchers are ambiguous. Everyone agrees that there was more than one source.
In his work, Diodorus Siculus collected information from the works of the following authors:
- Herodotus;
- Hecatius of Miletus;
- Duris;
- Megasthenes;
- Jerome of Cardia.
It can be argued about the use of about eighty sources. Their choice can be called successful. Diodorus did not just copy them, he combined information, supplementing it from several sources. However, there is practically no criticism in his work. In addition, the researchers found that sometimes he tells the same event twice, but as different stories.
Structure of the work
Diodorus Siculus compiled his work of forty books. It is written in ancient Greek.
To this day, books from the first to the fifth and from the eleventh to the twentieth have completely survived. All his work is divided into blocks, each includes five books. The block is called a pentad. What can be learned in each block?
Book contents
The author described the events that took place with the ancient states before the period of the Gallic War under Julius Caesar.
Summary of the first four pentads:
- The ancient history of the states of the East and Greece is revealed, events are intertwined with myths.
- An overview of the archaic history of Greece and Rome is given from the moment of the Trojan War to the time when the Persian ruler Xerxes campaigned against Greece - the period 1200-480. BC.
- The history of classical Greece is described in detail, namely the Greco-Persian confrontations, the creation of the Athenian naval alliance, the time of the Fiftieth Anniversary, the Peloponnesian War - the period 480-360 BC.
- Regarding the events of the early Hellenistic time, when the Macedonian hegemony was established, the campaign of Alexander the Great took place, his empire collapsed - the period of 360-302 BC.
The rest of the pentads are preserved in fragments. In them, the author details the fate of the Hellenistic states, the process of the rise of Rome to the period of successful actions of Julius Caesar.
Chronology
The peculiarity of the work is its unique chronology. Ancient historians such as Herodotus and Thucydides did not use the concept of a historical era, they did not date the events they recounted.
Diodorus, on the contrary, set out the events in an analytical way, that is, by years. As a designation of the year, he indicated the number and time of the Olympics. Today, the year of the 1st Olympiad is considered to be 776 BC.
However, in chronologythere is a lot of confusion. This can be partly explained by the fact that the author could describe an event by dating it in one year, despite the fact that it lasted for several years. Also, confusion arises due to the fact that the beginnings of the Olympiads, consulates and archons did not coincide with each other.
Researchers have tried to sort out the chronological confusion, but they have not been effective enough.
The value of labor
The "Historical Library" of Diodorus Siculus is a work that, despite its shortcomings, is of great historical significance. It is an extensive source with rich content. Without this work, one cannot do in the study of ancient history. Thanks to the book, historians learned not only about the most important events, but also about the existence of many works of other ancient authors.
Some sources became known thanks to Diodorus. His work is of particular importance for the study of the past of Sicily, as well as the history of Hellas. At many points, Diodorus describes the past more accurately and reliably than Xenophon. Thanks to him, there is information about the Athenian archons for a fairly long period of time.
