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Two Proper Names in the text of Diodorus, Book 15

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Christopher Tuplin
Affiliation:
University of Liverpool

Extract

Both patently incorrect readings and long-established emendations have a habit of retaining their places in texts of ancient authors with few or no questions asked. This paper considers two examples of this phenomenon (one of each type) in Book 15 of Diodorus' Bibliotheke.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1979

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References

1 ‘Chabrias’ in Diod. 15.36.4 may be another example of the first type, though fofthe moment I do not see my way to a solution of that passage. For another example of an emendation, long accepted but perhaps wrongly, see my paper The Athenian Embassy to Sparta in 372/1‘ in Liverpool Classical Monthly 2 (1977), 51 f.Google Scholar, on the textof Xen.Hell. 6.3.2.

2 Sources: Xen. Hell. 7.5.9 f.; Diod. 15.82.5 f.; Polyb. 9.8.2 f.; Plut. Ages. 34; Aen.Tact. 2.2; Justin 6.7; Polyaen. 2.3.10; Front. Strat. 3.11.5.

3 Xen. Hell. 7.5.9.

5 There were already three lochoi, a mercenary-force, and cavalry at Mantinea, Xen. Hell. 7.5.10.

6 Ages. 34.4.

7 Ibid. 3

8 Loc. cit. (n. 2).

10 e.g. Peper, L., De Plutarchi Epaminonda (Weidae, 1912) p. 98 n. 4Google Scholar; Jacoby, F., Fragmente der griechischen Historiker II D (Berlin, 1930), p. 425.Google Scholar

11 Ages. 34.4.

12 Loc. cit. (n. 2).

13 Loc. cit. (n. 2).

14 Age: Plut. Ages. 33.1. Shared command: Xen. Hell. 7.1.4.

15 364: Xen. Ages. 2.26 f., Nep. Timoth. 1.3; 361: Xen.Ages. 2.27–31; Plut. Ages. 36ff.;Diod. 15.92–3; Nep. Ages. 8.

16 Hell. 3.2.23 f.

17 Ibid. 4.7.3.

18 Cases like the persistent confusion/:onflation of Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus in Book 13 are, of course, quite different and can be left out of account here.

19 Xen.Hell. 4.4.19:4.7.2 f.

20 Cf.Bauer, A., Hist. Zeitsch. 65 (1890), 257 n. 1.Google Scholar

21 Cf. above.

22 In his edition of Diodorus, Amsterdam, 1746.

23 e.g. Stern, E.von, Gescbicbte der spartanischen und thebanischen Hegemonic(Dorpat, 1884), p. 235Google Scholar;Pohler, J., Diodoros als Quelle zur Gescbicbte von Hellas in der Zeit von Thebens Aufscbwung und Grösse (379–362) (Cassel, 1885), p. 69Google Scholar; Bauer, A., op. cit. (n. 20)Google Scholar;Underhill, G.CR 7 (1893), 15Google Scholar;Peper, , op. cit. (n. 10), p. 46.Google Scholar

24 e.g. Dindorf, L., Mueller, K. (Paris, 1878)Google Scholar; Vogel, F. (Leipzig, 1893)Google Scholar;C. H. Oldfather and others (London and Cambridge, Mass. (Loeb edn., vol. vii), 1952).

25 Vol. cit. (n. 24), p. 183 n. 1.

26 15.83.2.

27 Below, p. 351.

28 For some parallel examples, see appendix.

29 Xen. Hell. 7.5.8 f.

30 9.8.2.

31 15.82.6; 83.1.

32 Hell. 7.5.9.

33 e.g. Xen. Hell. 4.2.16:4.7.6.

34 As Polyb. 9.8.6 and Polyaen. 2.3.10 explicitly say.

35 FGH 124 F 26 (= Plut. Ages. 34,4). The part played by Thespiae in the war of the 370s makes a turncoat from there quite plausible (cf. Xen. Hell. 5.4.15; 20; 38 f.; 55;6.3.1;6.4.10;Diod. 15.27.4; 32.2; 33.5; 51.3).

36 The rhetorical comment about should not deceive us into imagining that Xenophon thought the Cretan came from anywhere but the other Spartan force.

37 15.33–5;68–9.

38 15.31 (Agesilaus); 15.39; 52; 56; 88 (Epaminondas).

39 Diod. 15.1.2; 84.3; 85.1.

40 That is clear from the universal silence of the sources.

41 Diod. 15.86.4.

42 Loc. cit. (n. 20).

43 Loc cit. (n. 23).

44 Loc. cit. (n. 22).

45 Xen.Hell. 7.1.28 f.; Diod. 15.72; Plut. Ages. 33.

46 Cf. Xen. Hell. 7.5.11 f. (where Archidamus occupies the limelight and erects the trophy) and Isoc. Epist. 9.4 (where Archidamus is called the of the battle).

47 15.52.1–53.1.

48 15.52.1. Sigla as in Vogel's edition (above, n. 24). Wesseling's emendation is proposed in his note ad loc.

49 Sigla as in edition of Matthieu, G./ Bremond, E. (Paris, 1928).Google Scholar

50 Sigla as in edition of Casewitz, M. (Paris, 1972)Google Scholar. For an example of the reverse corruption, see Stephanus of Byzantium s.v.

51 Sigla for Book 12 as in edition mentioned in n. 50; those for Book 16 from Vogel (n. 24 above).

52 Sigla as in edition of Ziegler, K. (Leipzig, 1973). Cf. also G and L1 at 16.14; 17.2; 17,8.Google Scholar

53 That Epaminondas was acting on the expectation that Cleombrotus would come viaCoronea is explicit in Xen. Hell. 6.4.3 and Paus. 9.13.3. Cf. below.

54 Xen. Hell. 6.4.2 f.

55 Xen. Hell. 4.3.10 f., esp. 16 (394); id. 3.5.17–18 (395). It should be noted that the point about the narrows near Coronea is that they control main roads from Phocis either. via Chaeronea or via Lebadeia.

56 For this identification of the narrows round Coronea, see Wolter, J. in Veith, J.Kromayer G.Antike Schlacbtfelder iv (Berlin, 1924/1931), p. 291Google Scholar;Beister, H., Untersucbungen zu der Zeit der thebaniscben Hegemonie (Munich, 1970), p. 24.Google Scholar

57 Cf. Xen. Hell. 5.4.13 ff.; 59.

58 e.g. Beister, , op. cit. (n. 56), p. 23Google Scholar. Many however evade the issue altogether, cf. n. 77.

59 Xen. Hell. 6.4.3.

60 It is perhaps worth noting that the fact that Cleombrotus went is possibly better in accord with his having started at Chaeronea than Coronea. To get from the latter through Helicon to the south coast and thence via Creusis to Leuctra, Cleombrotus could have followed the route south from Coronea to the plain of Koukoura and thence to Thisbe and Creusis (cf. Philippson, A., Griechiscbe Landschaften i.2 (Frankfurt a/M, 1951), 443–4Google Scholar and, for orientation, the maps in Beister, , op. cit. (opp.p. 72)Google Scholar, or Bum, A.R., ABSA 44(1949), plate 42)Google Scholar. rather than make the immense detour via Ambrossos. (There is absolutely no reason to suppose that, at the time he set out, the contingent under Chaereas with which he later clashed (Paus. loc. cit.) had yet taken up a position e.g. at the plain of Koukoura.) Beister explains Cleombrotus' not having taken this route by the supposition that he was unwilling to make the ascent of Helicon in enemy country and gives countenance also to Wolter's idea that the king wished to give the deceitful impression that he was making a total withdrawal (Beister, , op. cit., p. 36Google Scholar). These explanations may or may not do for the data as usually conceived. But if Cleombrotus started at Chaeronea, there is nothing to explain, since to go merely involved following the main road to Delphi as far as the Schiste Hodos and then continuing south, and this was a natural way for him to go.

61 The narratives of some of the authors mentioned in n. 77, who ignore Diodorus, seem to support this suspicion.

62 See Xen. Hell. 6.4.4–5 plus the passages in n. 57.

63 Xen. Hell. 5.4.59.

64 Ibid. 13 f.

65 Id. 6.4.4–5.

66 Cf. Thuc. 4.76.3; Steph. Byz. s.v. Paus. 9.40.12 (Chaeronea having a common border with Phocian Panopeus); Beister, , op. cit. (n. 56), p. 26.Google Scholar

67 Thuc. 2.18.5.

68 Ibid. 3 f.

69 Xen.Hell. 5.1.33.

70 Isocr. 14.37.

71 According to Xenophon (Hell. 6.4.6) the Theban leaders feared that if they acted with pusillanimity they would be rewarded by the revolt of the

72 Diod. 15.52; 53.3–54.4; Plut.Pelop. 20, Demosth. 20;Polyaen. 2.3.8; 12;Xen. Hell. 6.4.7.

73 Op. cit. (n. 56), p. 24.Google Scholar

74 Ibid. p. 25.

75 It might be noted that if Cleombrotus was aware in advance (as he surely was) that the reliability of his Peloponnesian allies was not all that great, then the inclination to acquire the largest possible element from central Greek allies, who perhaps had a greater personal interest in the breaking of Theban power, would be very understandable. If a battle had ultimately to be fought then their presence would be advantageous; and in any case the strength of the excuse they afforded for delay (see text) would be enhanced.

76 Cf. Xen. Hell. 5.4.47–9 for the calculated use of ‘loose talk’.

77 e.g. Curtius, E., History of Greece iv (Eng. trans.) (London, 1872), 385Google Scholar; Grote, G., History of Greece4 viii (London, 1872), 167Google Scholar; Frazer, J.G., Pausanias' Description of Greece, v (London, 1897), 50Google Scholar; Beloch, K.J., Griechiscbe Geschicbte2 iii.l (Berlin/Leipzig, 1922), 166Google Scholar;Cohen, R., Histoire grecque iii (Paris, 1936), 148Google Scholar; Cloché, P., Thèbes de Béotie (Namur, n.d.), p. 130Google Scholar; Hammond, N.G.L., History of Greece2 (Oxford, 1968), p. 493.Google Scholar

78 Op. cit. (n. 60), p. 321Google Scholar. Pohler, 's reference (op. cit. (n. 23), p. 42Google Scholar) to ‘vergebliche Versuche über Chaironeia und Koroneia [sc. zu gehen]’ may suggest that he read but leaves it unclear whether he thought Cleombrotus got as far as Coronea. Bury, J.B., History of Greece (London, 1924), pp. 592 f.Google Scholar, has Cleombrotus start the campaign when ‘posted near Chaeronea in the gate between Phocis and Boeotia …’ which may also imply reading . In neither case is any attention drawn to the textual problem, and in both cases it is possible that the authors derived their reference to Chaeronea from a priori calculation.

79 Since neither the recent very full discussion of the lead-up to Leuctra in Beister, , op. cit. (n. 56), pp. 1372Google Scholar, nor the older treatments of Pritchett, W.K. (Studies in Ancient Greek Topography i (Berkeley, 1965), pp. 49 f.)Google Scholar, and Wolter, J. (op. cit. (n. 56), pp. 290 f.), hint that the text might be in doubt, the necessity of making this point seems all the stronger.Robin Seager was kind enough to read an earlier draft of this paper. He should not of course be held responsible for any betises that may persist.Google Scholar