''Hellenica Oxyrhynchia'' is an

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...

history of

classical Greece Classical Greece was a period of around 200 years (the 5th and 4th centuries BC) in Ancient Greece,The "Classical Age" is "the modern designation of the period from about 500 B.C. to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C." ( Thomas R. Marti ...

in the late 5th and early 4th centuries BCE, of which

papyrus Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to ...

fragments were unearthed at

Oxyrhynchus Oxyrhynchus (; grc-gre, Ὀξύρρυγχος, Oxýrrhynchos, sharp-nosed; ancient Egyptian ''Pr-Medjed''; cop, or , ''Pemdje''; ar, البهنسا, ''Al-Bahnasa'') is a city in Middle Egypt located about 160 km south-southwest of Cai ...

, in

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...

. The author, whose name is not recorded in the surviving fragments, is usually known by scholars simply as "P" (for "papyrus"). HellenicaOxyrhynchia Walker

Overview

One of the two major fragments, called the ''London papyrus,'' found in 1906, deals with battles in the late

Peloponnesian War The Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC) was an ancient Greek war fought between Athens and Sparta and their respective allies for the hegemony of the Greek world. The war remained undecided for a long time until the decisive intervention of ...

, particularly the

Battle of Notium The Battle of Notium (or Battle of Ephesus) in 406 BC was a Spartan naval victory in the Peloponnesian War. Prior to the battle, the Athenian commander, Alcibiades, left his helmsman, Antiochus, in command of the Athenian fleet, which was blocka ...

. The other, the ''Florentine papyrus'', found in 1934, deals with events in the early 4th century BCE. The entire history seems to have been a continuation of

Thucydides Thucydides (; grc, , }; BC) was an Athenian historian and general. His '' History of the Peloponnesian War'' recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of " scienti ...

covering events from 411 BCE to 394 BCE, much like

Xenophon Xenophon of Athens (; grc, Ξενοφῶν ; – probably 355 or 354 BC) was a Greek military leader, philosopher, and historian, born in Athens. At the age of 30, Xenophon was elected commander of one of the biggest Greek mercenary armies o ...

's ''

Hellenica ''Hellenica'' ( grc, Ἑλληνικά) simply means writings on Greek (Hellenic) subjects. Several histories of 4th-century Greece, written in the mould of Thucydides or straying from it, have borne the conventional Latin title ''Hellenica''. Th ...

'' ( a fragment of which has also been found at Oxyrhynchus). The discovery of the first papyrus in 1906 led to a shift in the degree of credence that historians assigned to the ancient sources of the period. In the 19th century, Xenophon, a contemporary of the events he described, was presumed to be universally preferable to the much later

Diodorus Siculus Diodorus Siculus, or Diodorus of Sicily ( grc-gre, Διόδωρος ; 1st century BC), was an ancient Greek historian. He is known for writing the monumental universal history '' Bibliotheca historica'', in forty books, fifteen of which ...

. P was found to agree more with Diodorus's account than with Xenophon's on several key issues. This led to a re-evaluation of the values of these sources, and modern historians now prefer Diodorus' account at a number of points.

Author

While P's identity has been debated extensively by modern scholars, a consensus has not been achieved. Among the authors suggested at early stages have been prominent historians such as Ephorus and

Theopompus Theopompus ( grc-gre, Θεόπομπος, ''Theópompos''; c. 380 BCc. 315 BC) was an ancient Greek historian and rhetorician. Biography Theopompus was born on the Aegean island of Chios. In early youth, he seems to have spent some time at Athen ...

, although most of these have been strongly objected to on grounds of style, presentation, or subject matter. The most likely candidate seems to be Cratippus, an Athenian historian of the 4th century BCE. The style, biases, and coverage (Cratippus's work is known to have been a continuation of Thucydides) support the identification, although issues have been raised. Bruno Bleckmann, an expert on ancient historiography, has pleaded again for Theopompus as the author of the ''Hellenica''.Bruno Bleckmann: ''Fiktion als Geschichte. Neue Studien zum Autor der Hellenika Oxyrhynchia und zur Historiographie des vierten vorchristlichen Jahrhunderts''. Göttingen 2006. P's work is praised for its pragmatism and style, but is not without its detractors. The writing, in the words of the

classicist Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Cla ...

H.D. Westlake, is that of a "competent and most conscientious historian who derives his material from the best possible sources, ndmakes an effort to interpret it impartially, but somehow lacks distinction in thought and style. He is a second-rate Thucydides."

References

External links

P.Oxy. V 842 Images online at British Library

PSI 1304 Images online at PSIOnline
{{Authority control 4th-century BC history books 1906 archaeological discoveries Historiography of Greece Oxyrhynchus papyri Works of uncertain authorship

Overview

Author

References

Further reading

External links