For the life of the poet Ion we have more certain dates than for most of the Other writers of the fifth century. He produced his first tragedy in the 82nd Olympiad, 452after the death of Perikles and when the revolt of Lesbos was imminent7dgr; 'Aa fact which seems significant of the position which Athens had won for herself by the foundation of the Delian League. At the same time this fact clearly indicates that his father Orthomenes, whom they called (...) Xuthos, had whole-heartedly espoused the cause of Athens. He bequeathed his loyalty to his son Ion, who adhered to Athens through all vicissitudes of fortune, and he in his turn bequeathed it to his son Tydeus, who paid for it with his life. (shrink)

In adapting the story of the Great War to the taste of his own age Ephoros, himself a pupil of Isokrates and a professional historian, was led astray by the combined influences of rhetoric and rationalism; as neither the rationalism nor the rhetoric was of the best quality, the intrusion of both at this stage could have inflicted irreparable damage on the tradition of the war if the text of Herodotus had not survived to refute the inventions grafted on the (...) authentic record by Ephoros. (shrink)

The eminent classical scholar Jacqueline de Romilly offers a compelling reassessment of the intellectual and cultural achievement of the Sophists of classical Athens, who were among the most important and influential thinkers of the ancient world. She provides a vivid reconstruction of their original methods and bold doctrines, arguing that they have been widely misunderstood because of the lack of direct evidence, and she investigates the reasons for their success and for the subsequent reaction against them.

For long stretches of Greek history in the classical period, Diodorus Siculus provides the only surviving continuous narrative of events. For this narrative he summarized, however incompetently, the work of earlier and greater historians whose original texts are lost to us. This makes Diodorus an invaluable quarry of the historian and the historiographer alike, but one that can only be used with discretion. We need to get as clear an idea as we can of the way his mind worked, where (...) his account is most likely to be useful, and what sort of distortions to expect when he goes astray. Research into his methods and procedures is thus an urgent necessity. The present study, the fullest ever undertaken for any part of Diodorus, aims to meet the needs of both history and historiography. In the introduction, necessarily substantial, the aims, sources, and methods of Diodorus are examined in detail. The findings of this investigation are then applied in commenting on Book 15, a particularly important book which deals with the crucial years between the King's Peace, concluded in 387/6 BC, and the aftermath of the battle of Mantinea fought in 362 BC. (shrink)

Despite increasingly sophisticated theoretical debate, scholars concerned with ancient historiography effectively still divide into two camps: historians, who want to use the texts as sources and assess them by criteria of accuracy, reliability, completeness of record and presence or absence of prejudice according to their presumed relationship to the facts which they purport to represent; and literary scholars, who want to interpret the texts as texts, with their own internal logic.

For the life of the poet Ion we have more certain dates than for most of the Other writers of the fifth century. He produced his first tragedy in the 82nd Olympiad, 452–448 B.C., another in the year of the archon Epameinon 429/428 B.C. —after the death of Perikles and when the revolt of Lesbos was imminent—and his death is fixed for us by a passage in the Peace of Aristophanes, which we may well call an obituary, in summer 422 (...) or even in winter 422/421 B.C. The approximate date of his birth we learn from his own words in a story preserved by Plutarch, and deriving no doubt from the book to which later librarians gave the title 'Επι7dgr;ημίαι or 'Υπομνήμαтα: 5 συδειπνσαι δè тι Κίμωνί ησιν Ἴων πανάπασιν μειράκιον ἢκων ες 'Aθήνας Χίου παρà Ααομέδονтι. Hence he was about fifteen years of age when he first came to Athens, apparently in order to get his higher education there—a fact which seems significant of the position which Athens had won for herself by the foundation of the Delian League. At the same time this fact clearly indicates that his father Orthomenes, whom they called Xuthos, had whole-heartedly espoused the cause of Athens. He bequeathed his loyalty to his son Ion, who adhered to Athens through all vicissitudes of fortune, and he in his turn bequeathed it to his son Tydeus, who paid for it with his life. (shrink)