Diodorus

“ Diodorus is very deserving of attention with regard to these times. We do not know from what source he has borrowed; perhaps from Fabius, perhaps from Timæus: the latter is very possible. Timæus may have treated of this period as an introduction to his history of Pyrrhus, or else in his Siceliote and Italiote histories. The notices of Diodorus are very remarkable, though extremely scattered and unequal; sometimes he drops the thread of his subject, being on the whole a very wretched writer, sometimes he takes it up again ”

“ Only fragments have come down to us of Diodorus' narrative of the fall of Crœsus; in some respects these agree with the account of Herodotus; more frequently they differ from it. He may have borrowed from Ephorus. [9] Diodorus began with the death of Attys by the javelin of the Phrygian Adrastus. Crœsus at first threatens to have Adrastus burnt alive, but forgives his offence when he offers his own life for it. But he voluntarily slays himself at the tomb of Attys. ”

“ Diodorus Siculus and Dionysius of Halicarnassus [203] are both rhetoricians, the rhetoric of Diodorus being combined with a quasi-philosophical bent, and that of Dionysius with aesthetic criticism. Diodorus, indeed, has some quaintly judicious remarks on the introduction of long speeches into history. They interrupt the story, he says, and distract the reader: writers who wish to show their eloquence should do so somewhere else. A history should be an organic whole ”

“ Diodorus gives an account more historically plausible, but he could not well have had any positive authorities for that period, and he gives us seemingly the ideas of Greek authors of the days of the Ptolemies. Psammetichus (he tells us) , as one of the twelve kings, ruled at Saïs and in the neighboring part of the delta: he opened a trade, previously unknown in Egypt, with Greeks and Phenicians, so profitable that his eleven colleagues became jealous of his riches and combined to attack him. He raised an army of foreign mercenaries and defeated them (Diodor. i, 66-67) . ”

“ Thus was consummated the fifth or closing act of the despot’s progress, rendering Dionysius master of the lives and fortunes of [p. 445] his fellow-countrymen. The successive stages of his rise I have detailed from Diodorus, who (excepting a hint or two from Aristotle) is our only informant. His authority is on this occasion better than usual, since he had before him not merely Ephorus and Timæus, but also Philistus. He is, moreover, throughout this whole narrative at least clear and consistent with himself. ”

“ Who, then, can be so senseless, my dearly beloved Diodorus, as to say that those are aliens to each other who have been allied with each other, who have prophesied in turn for each other, and who have shown signs and wonders which are equal and similar, the one to the other, and of like nature with each other ”

“ Diodorus also says (iii. 3) that the people above Meroë worship Isis, Pan, Heracles, and Zeus: and his assertion would be confirmed by monuments in Upper Nubia bearing the head of Isis, &c, could we be certain of the date of their erection. The Aethiopian monarchy was even more strictly sacerdotal than that of Egypt, at least the power of the priesthood was longer undisputed. "In Aethiopia," says Diodorus (iii. 6) , "the priests send a sentence of death to the king, when they think he has lived long enough. The order to die is a mandate of the gods." ”

“ The standard works on the sources of Diodorus are C. G. Heyne, De fontibus et auctoribus historiarum Diodori, printed in Dindorf’s edition, and C. A. Volquardsen, Die Quellen der griechischen und sicilischen Geschichten bei Diodor (1868) ; A. von Mess, Rheinisches Museum (1906) ; see also L. O. Bröcker, Untersuchungen über Diodor (1879) , short, but containing much information; O. Maass, Kleitarch und Diodor (1894– ) ; G. J. Schneider, De Diodori fontibus, i.-iv. (1880) ; C. Wachsmuth, Einleitung in das Studium der alten Geschichte (1895) ; Greece; Ancient History, “Authorities.” ”

“ Diodorus extols the Tuscan race as a people addicted to the study of nature. They were undoubtedly, in their day, the most efficient promoters of physical knowledge, and laid the foundation of science for the Augustan age.
The knowledge of a great part of the surface of the eastern world was first attained by the conquests made by Alexander. These occurred at a time when the Grecian language and philosophy were so widely spread, that scientific observation and the systematic arrangement of general phenomena, could be rendered most lucid [Pg 179] to the mind, and most profitable to the world. ”

“ Diodorus Siculus has said, that Meroë was in the form of a shield, that is, in the figure of that triangular shield called Scutum, pointed at the bottom, and growing broader towards the top where it is square. Nothing can be more exact than this resemblance of the lower part of Atbara, that is, from Gerri to the Magiran, the part we suppose Diodorus was acquainted with, and it is scarcely possible that he could have fixed upon this resemblance without having seen some figure of it delineated upon paper. ”

“ The Greek historian Diodorus, followed by the biographer Plutarch and the Latin historian Justin, states that Leonidas made the attack on the Persian camp during the night, and in the darkness and in the confusion of the struggle nearly penetrated to the royal tent of Xerxes. On this basis of supposed facts the poet CROLY wrote his stirring poem descriptive of the conflict; but the statement of Diodorus, which is irreconcilable with Herodotus, is generally discredited by modern writers. ”

“ Next morning, however, Archelaus suddenly made his appearance at this residence [1] in which Diodorus was staying, before any one was yet stirring abroad. Manes accordingly, all unconscious of the fact that Archelaus was now on the spot again, challenged Diodorus publicly to engage in a disputation with him; his intention being to crush him with a verbal display, because he perceived that he was a man of a simple nature, and not very deeply learned in questions concerning the Scriptures. For he had now had a taste of the doctrine of Archelaus. ”

“ If you pretend to give birth to a boy, or even to a great bearded man who has not a drop of your blood in his veins, then, in the eyes of primitive law and philosophy, that boy or man is really your son to all intents and purposes. Thus Diodorus tells us that when Zeus persuaded his jealous wife Hera to adopt Hercules, the goddess got into bed, and clasping the burly hero to her bosom, pushed him through her robes and let him fall to the ground in imitation of a real birth; and the historian adds that in his own day the same mode of adopting children was practised by the barbarians. ”

“ If of this total we allow about 18,000 years to the gods, the accession of Menes would have to be placed about the year 5300 B.C. [10] But as Diodorus also says that something less than 5,000 years had elapsed since the first human king to his arrival in Egypt, Menes' reign would fall about the year 5000 B.C. Diodorus fixes the accession of this king even more closely when he remarks, in a third passage, that the Egyptians assured him that, "for more than [Pg 19] 4,700 years, kings, mostly natives, had ruled, and the land had prospered greatly under them." ”

“ Diodorus (xiv, 97) agrees in this number of twenty-seven triremes, and in the fact of aid having been obtained from Samos, which island was persuaded to detach itself from Athens. But he recounts the circumstances in a very different manner. He represents the oligarchical party in Rhodes as having risen in insurrection, and become masters of the island; he does not name Teleutias, but Eudokimus (Ekdikus?) ”

“ Sievers, in his discussion of the point, admits that the date assigned by Diodorus to the Eleian war, squares both with the date which Diodorus gives for the death of Agis, and with that which Plutarch states about the duration of the reign of Agesilaus,—better than the chronology which he himself (Sievers) prefers. He founds his conclusion on Xenophon, Hell. iii, 2, 21. Τούτων δὲ πραττομένων ἐν τῇ Ἀσίᾳ ὑπὸ Δερκυλλίδα, Λακεδαιμόνιοι κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν χρόνον πάλαι ὀργιζόμενοι τοῖς Ἠλείοις, etc. ”

“ When the divine Theodorus was ruling the church of Antioch, Theodorus, bishop of Mopsuestia, a doctor of the whole church and successful combatant against every heretical phalanx, ended this life. He had enjoyed the teaching of the great Diodorus, and was the friend and fellow-worker of the holy John, for they both together benefited by the spiritual draughts given by Diodorus. ”

“ His attendant Turbo, however, was handed over by Marcellus to Archelaus; and on Archelaus ordaining him as a deacon, he remained in the suite of Marcellus. But Manes in his flight came to a certain village which was at a considerable distance from the city, and bore the name of Diodorus. Now in that place there was also a presbyter whose name likewise was Diodorus, [6] a man of quiet and gentle disposition, and well reputed both for his faith and for the excellence of his general character. ”

“ Hardly any but Athenian citizens were capable of the forbearance displayed by Athens both after the Four Hundred and after the Thirty. Nevertheless, I believe that Diodorus is here mistaken, and that he has assigned to the period immediately succeeding the peace of Antalkidas, those reactionary violences which took place in many cities about sixteen years subsequently, after the battle of Leuktra. For Xenophon, in recounting what happened after the peace of Antalkidas, mentions nothing about any real autonomy granted by Sparta to her various subject-allies, and subsequently revoked ”

“ Though the Athenian hoplites suffered thus severely, yet Thrasybulus their commander, [584] who kept the field until the last, with strenuous efforts to rally them, was not satisfied with their behavior. But on the other hand, all the allies of Sparta were worsted, and a considerable number of them slain. According to Diodorus, the total loss on the Lacedæmonian side was eleven hundred; on the side of the confederates twenty-eight hundred. ”

“ For it is plain that it is not the soul, but the body, which has a liver. And in the same manner he has described both Sisyphus and Tantalus as enduring punishment with the body. And that Homer had been in Egypt, and introduced into his own poem much of what he there learnt, Diodorus, the most esteemed of historians, plainly enough teaches us. ”

“ Diodorus Siculus, is carried about in a ship of gold by eighty of his priests. They bear him upon their shoulders, and pursue their way by instinct, just as the divine automaton chances to direct them. These persons, who thus officiated, were probably the same as the Petipharæ of the antient Egyptians, but were called Pateræ by the Greeks. It was a name, and office, by which the priests of Delphi, and of many other places besides those in Egypt, were distinguished: and the term always related to oracular interpretation. ”

“ The distribution of Diodorus, who specifies (over and above priests and soldiers) husbandmen, herdsmen, and artificers, embraces much more completely the whole popula [p. 318] tion. [596] It seems more the statement of a reflecting man, pushing out the principle of hereditary occupations to its consequences; (and the comments which the historian so abundantly interweaves with his narrative show that such was the character of the authorities which he followed) ;—while the list given by Herodotus comprises that which struck his observation. ”

“ Diodorus adds, that this ought not to appear incredible, since, not to mention the innumerable armies of Darius and Xerxes, the city of Syracuse alone, in the time of Dionysius the Tyrant, furnished one hundred and twenty thousand foot and twelve thousand horse, besides four hundred vessels well equipped and provided. And a little before Hannibal's time, Italy, including the citizens and allies, was able to send into the field near a million of men. Ninus made himself master of a great number of cities, and at last laid siege to Bactria, the capital of the country. ”

“ Diodorus tells us that the Carthaginians learnt from the retaliation thus suffered, a lesson of forbearance. It will not appear however, from their future conduct, that the lesson was much laid to heart; while it is unhappily cer [p. 485] tain, that such interchange of cruelties with less humanized neighbors, contributed to lower in the Sicilian Greeks that measure of comparative forbearance which characterized the Hellenic race in its own home.
Elate with this fury of revenge, the citizens of Kamarina, Gela, Agrigentum, and Selinus joined Dionysius on his march along the coast. ”

“ The letter itself decides for Diodorus of Tyre, whom Paulinus of Antioch had quite unwarrantably ordained to this see (cf. Rufin, H. E. ii. 21) . Whether (as has been held on the authority of Rufinus) Diodorus, or (as Le Quien, Or. Chr. ii. 865 sq. holds) Zeno, the nominee of Meletius, was first in the field in the unseemly scramble, is doubtful. Zeno is already bishop in 365 (Soz. vi. 12) ; the date of the appointment of Diodorus, whose claim is at any rate no better than that of Paulinus himself, is quite uncertain (see also Prolegg. ch. ii. §§9, 10) . ”

“ Following Zeno of Rhodes, who wrote the history of his home in the first half of the second century B.C., [80] Diodorus tells us: The king of the Phenicians, Agenor, bade his son Cadmus seek his sister Europa, [81] who had [Pg 56] disappeared, and bring back the maiden, or not return himself to Phœnicia. Overtaken by a violent storm, Cadmus vowed a shrine to Poseidon. He was saved, and landed on the island of Rhodes, where the inhabitants worshipped before all other gods the sun, who had here begotten seven sons and among them Makar. ”