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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2009
The fragments of ancient historians are regarded by many people as a storehouse of unrelated scraps of historical evidence. It is natural that a modern student of history should take this attitude, since he welcomes any new piece of evidence offered to him and is likely to be more interested in the information itself than in the source from which it comes. Indeed, it may happen that an isolated fragment quoted from an obscure lost historian has an almost absolute value for him. For example, according to the account in Plutarch, Diyllus, ‘by no means an insignificant historian’, recorded that the Athenians, on the motion of a certain Anytus, voted a gift of ten talents to Herodotus, presumably as a reward for giving readings from his history. We know next to nothing about Diyllus, except that he wrote twenty-six books dealing with the last quarter of the fourth century b.c., and this isolated remark of his, preserved by Plutarch, tells us little more. But a fragment of this kind has considerable interest for the historian; its value is like the value of an inscription which records the proposal and passing of a law. At the same time, since a single instance does not justify a general conclusion, it does not give enough information on which to base any conclusive opinion about the rewards given to literary men in Periclean Athens. No more does a single inscription make it possible to pass judgement on the legislative activities of any particular period. The historian must collect and compare a number of such inscriptions before he is entitled to form an opinion.
page 43 note 1 De Herodoti malignitate, 862B.
page 43 note 2 For the evidence see Jacoby, F., Die Fragmente der griech. Historiker, iiGoogle Scholar, A, No. 73.
page 45 note 1 I have discussed Hecataeus more in detail in Chapter II of my Early Ionian Historians (Oxford, 1939).Google Scholar
page 46 note 1 The references are to the fragments in Jacoby, F. Gr. Hist, iGoogle Scholar, No. 1. F. is used as abbreviation for Fragmentum.
page 47 note 1 Rawlinson's translation. For another passage of similar character see iv. 191.
page 47 note 2 Cf., e.g., Dionysius of Halicarnassus, De Thucydide, 5. See also Fränkel, H., ‘Eine Stileigenheit der frühgriechischen Literatur’, Nachrichten der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, Göttingen (1924), esp. pp. 87–90.Google Scholar
page 48 note 1 The fragments are in Jacoby, , F. Or. Hist, iiGoogle ScholarA, No. 70.
page 49 note 1 For the clearest statement of the case see Walker, E. M., The Hellenica Oxyrhynchia (Oxford, 1913)Google Scholar; cf. also Cavaignac, E., ‘Réflexions sur Éphore’, Mélanges Gustave Glotz (Paris, 1932), i, pp. 143–61.Google Scholar The most recent discussion is by Bloch, H., ‘Studies in Historical Literature of the Fourth Century b.c.’, Harvard Studies in Class. Phil., Supp. i (1940), volume for Ferguson, W. S. pp. 303–40.Google Scholar
page 49 note 2 F. 191.
page 49 note 3 xi. 60–2.
page 49 note 4 xii. 28.10.
page 49 note 5 Praecepta reiptiblicae gerendae, 803 B.
page 49 note 6 xii, 25 F.
page 50 note 1 Polybius ix. 1.4; Strabo x. 3. 5.
page 50 note 2 ii. 68.
page 52 note 1 De Deinarcho, 3.
page 53 note 1 References are to the fragments in Müller, , Fragtnenta Historicorum Graecorum, vol. iGoogle Scholar, but many fragments have been added since the publication of that collection; Philochorus is not included in the volumes published so far of Jacoby’s F. Gr. Hist. I have devoted a chapter to his Atthis in my Local Historians of Attica (American Philological Assoc, Monograph No. xi, Philadelphia, 1942).
page 54 note 1 v. 62–3.
page 55 note 1 Most conveniently available in the Teubner series, edited by Diels and Schubart (Leipzig, 1904).