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DRACONTIUS (LD 3.279–95) AND THE SOURCE OF THE THERMOPYLAE NYKTOMACHIA
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 April 2014
Extract
The account of the Battle of Thermopylae found in Diodorus Siculus (11.8.4–10.4) is remarkably different from the more commonly known Herodotean version of events (7.201–33). Most strikingly, his account includes details of a night raid on the Persian camp made by Leonidas and his men. Diodorus’ principal source for this section of the narrative, historians generally agree, was Ephorus of Cyme (c. 405–330 b.c.). This tradition was later taken up also by Justin (2.11.12–18) and Plutarch (De malignitate Herodoti 866a). But who was Ephorus’ source? Many believe that Ephorus simply made it up. However, Michael Flower, in a discussion of Ephorus and his sources, rightly I think, dismisses this verdict on a number of accounts. Firstly, he questions the willingness of Ephorus’ audience to accept this novel version without Ephorus providing a suitable source for it. Secondly, he points out that scholars have never conclusively demonstrated that Ephorus simply fabricated the events that he related. Instead, dismissing the Greek physician Ctesias of Cnidus (‘It could not have come from Ctesias’), who was active during the last decades of the fifth and early part of the fourth century b.c., Flower argues for the possibility that the lyric poetry of Simonides of Ceos was Ephorus’ source. It is the argument of this paper that Flower dismisses Ctesias as a source for the Thermopylae nyktomachia too quickly, and that by combining information found in Dracontius (De laudibus Dei 3.279–95) and Tertullian (Apologeticum 9.6) it is probable to conclude that Ctesias is indeed the source for this alternative tradition.
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References
1 Stylianou, P.J., A Historical Commentary on Diodorus Siculus Book 15 (Oxford, 1998)Google Scholar, 49: ‘As far as the Greek and Persian narratives of Books 11–15 (16) are concerned there is very wide agreement that Diodorus epitomized Ephorus. This was firmly established long ago and requires no detailed argumentation’; cf. e.g. Volquardsen, C.A., Untersuchungen über die Quellen der griechischen und sizilischen Geschichte bei Diodor XI bis XVI (Kiel, 1868)Google Scholar; E. Schwartz, RE 5.663–704; Hornblower, S. (ed.), Greek Historiography (Oxford, 1994), 36–8.Google Scholar
2 See Hammond, N.G.L., ‘Sparta at Thermopylae’, Historia 45 (1996), 1–20Google Scholar for a summary of this tradition. Cf. also Orosius 2.9.7–10, who draws on Justin, and see Fear, A.T., Orosius. Seven Books of History against the Pagans (Liverpool, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 88.
3 See Flower, M.A., ‘Simonides, Ephorus, and Herodotus on the Battle of Thermopylae’, CQ 48 (1998), 365–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 366 (esp. n. 9): ‘The communis opinio is that Ephorus simply made up the night attack whole cloth.’
4 Flower (n. 3).
5 Ibid. 367; in his footnote (n. 16), Flower is rather more guarded. Commenting on Photius’ epitome of Ctesias, he states, ‘Photius’ bald statement that the Lacedaemonians “having been surrounded, all died fighting bravely” … is too vague to rule out a night attack’.
6 Ibid. 369–79. By suggesting Simonides, Flower goes a step further than Hammond (n. 2), 5–8, who identifies two sources for Ephorus’ Thermopylae campaign, one which he labels simply as ‘X’ and a separate source for the nyktomachia (Diod. Sic. 11.9.2–10.4), based on the change in style, which he describes as ‘bombastic and rhetorical’ (p. 8). On this second source, Hammond writes, ‘[t]he obvious explanation of the difference in style is that Diodorus’ and Justin's immediate source, Ephorus, abandoned X at 11.9.2 and 2.11.11. Instead, he took up an imaginative and flamboyant account with all the features of self-glorification which are characteristic of many a freedom-fighter's ballad’ (p. 8). On Ephorus’ sources, including Ctesias, see Barber, G.L., The Historian Ephorus (Cambridge, 1935), 113–37Google Scholar; Parker, V., ‘The historian Ephorus: his selection of sources’, Antichthon 38 (2004), 29–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; in particular Parker comments, ‘[b]ut I fail to note any influence of Ctesias in Ephorus’ account of the Persian Wars themselves …’ (p. 33). For Ctesias’ surviving account of Thermopylae whether in epitome and/or fragments as well as commentary upon them, see A. Nichols, ‘The complete fragments of Ctesias of Cnidus: translation and commentary with an introduction’ (Diss., University of Florida, 2008), 31–3, 94, 173–4; Lenfant, D. (ed.), Ctésias de Cnide. La Perse, L'Inde, Autres Fragments (Paris, 2004)Google Scholar, XCI–XCII; Llewellyn-Jones, L. and Robson, J. (ed. and tr.), Ctesias’ History of Persia: Tales of the Orient (London and New York, 2010)Google Scholar, 89, 183; Stronk, J.P. (ed. and tr.), Ctesias’ Persian History Part I: Introduction, Text, and Translation (Düsseldorf, 2010), 332–3.Google Scholar
7 For the text of Dracontius, I have used Moussy, Claude (ed. and tr.), Dracontius: Oeuvres II (Paris, 1988)Google Scholar. Apart from Moussy's ‘notes complémentaires’ I know of no commentary on Book 3 in any language. For a discussion of this passage, and its literary texture, see Simons, R., Dracontius und der Mythos: Christliche Weltsicht und pagane Kultur in der ausgehenden Spätantike (Munich and Leipzig, 2005), 120–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
8 Cf. Tert. Ad nat. 1.16: plane Persae, <C>tesias edit, tam scientes quam non horrentes cum <ma>tribus libere f<ac>iunt (Borleffs, J.W.Ph., CCSL I [Brepols, 1954])Google Scholar. Stronk (n. 6), 192 is unconvinced that Tertullian's reference is to a specific description in the Persica. On the actual practice among the Persians, see Nichols (n. 6), 200–1; cf. also Hdt. 3.31; Xanthus of Lydia (FGrHist 765 F 31); Strabo 15.3.20; Curt. 8.2.19; Catull. 90.3–4; Min. Fel. 31.3. According to Asheri, David et al. (edd.), A Commentary on Herodotus Books I–IV (Oxford, 2007)Google Scholar, 430, marriage between blood-relatives is much praised in the Avesta.
9 I would like to thank Elke Steinmeyer and David Wardle, as well as CQ's anonymous reader, for their assistance in the preparation of this paper.