Ephorus of Kyme

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ephoros of Kyme ( Latinized Ephorus ; * around 400 BC; † 330 BC ) was an ancient Greek historian .

Life

Ephorus came from Kyme in Aeolia . Almost nothing is known about his life; the trustworthiness of the later tradition is doubtful. He is said to have been a pupil of Isocrates together with the historian Theopompus von Chios ; this is possible, but not clearly established. According to Plutarch , he refused to accompany Alexander the Great on his campaign as a reporter.

plant

Ephoros is best known as the author of a comprehensive universal Greek history , the histories . They were apparently written over a longer period of time and lastly comprised 30 books, of which Ephorus only wrote the first 29 books himself. They began with the legendary early days of the Heraklus in the Peloponnese and lasted until the 4th century BC. The complete work was edited by his son Demophilos, who added a 30th book containing a summary description of the civil war, which began with the conquest of Perinthos by Philip II of Macedonia in 340 BC. Ends (cf. Diodorus 16, 14 with 16, 76). Only (albeit a relatively large number) fragments of the work have survived in the form of quotations or mentions in other works.

Ephoros is considered a clerk in the office, who only relied on written documents, but processed large amounts of source material. It is clear that Ephorus used good sources. He seems to have used one main source in each of the books, but supplemented this with material from other sources whenever possible. He also let his own opinion flow into it. His work was highly praised and widely read in antiquity, and was consulted by Diodorus and other authors. Strabon (8th book) used his geographical investigations, attached great importance to them and praised him as the first to separate the historical from the geographical elements. Polybios (12, 25) gave him knowledge in the field of naval warfare, but made his description of the Battle of Leuctra and the Battle of Mantineia ridiculous because of the description of the military operations on land.

As a historian, Ephoros is often less valued than other authors, as he primarily evaluated known material (but also some works that have been lost today). On the other hand, the fact that he did not want to write a historical work over a limited period of time (such as Thucydides ) and did not write epitoms from a comprehensive work, but explicitly wrote a history of the known world, is already remarkable . His universal history, in which Greek history was of course the focus, not only took into account extensive source material, but also offered a synthesis based on it. However, due to its fragmentary condition, it is difficult to conclusively assess Ephoros' quality. However, as its aftermath shows, it deserves recognition and may (according to Victor Parker) be called on an equal footing with Xenophon . Polybios (5.33) positively mentions that he was the first and only one before him to venture into world history.

As an eyewitness, Ephorus claims to have observed the breaking of the Great Comet of 373 BC in two parts, whereupon Seneca cast doubt in his Naturales quaestiones Ephoros' credibility.

Works ascribed to him are:

  • A treatise on discovery, considering good and bad things.
  • About noteworthy things in different countries (it is doubtful whether it is a separate work or part of the history).
  • A treatise on my country, the history and antiquities of Kyme.
  • An essay on style, his only rhetorical work mentioned by rhetorician Theon.

expenditure

  • The fragments of the historians Ephorus of Kyme and Timaeus of Tauromenion . Translated by Barbara Gauger, Jörg-Dieter Gauger . Library of Greek Literature Vol. 77. Anton Hiersemann, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-7772-1506-8 .
  • Felix Jacoby (Ed.): The Fragments of the Greek Historians , Part 2, Volume 2a, No. 70, Berlin 1926 (reprint 1986).
  • Victor Parker: Brill's New Jacoby , No. 70 (with English translation and a new commentary).

literature

  • Godfrey L. Barber: The Historian Ephorus . Cambridge 1935.
  • Klaus Meister : The Greek historiography . Stuttgart 1990, pp. 85ff.
  • Giovanni Parmeggiani: Eforo di Cuma. Studi di storiografia greca . Bologna 2011 (current standard work that revises the often negative Ephoros image of older research.)
  • Carlo Scardino: Ephorus by Kyme. In: Bernhard Zimmermann , Antonios Rengakos (Hrsg.): Handbook of the Greek literature of antiquity. Volume 2: The Literature of the Classical and Hellenistic Period. CH Beck, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-406-61818-5 , pp. 631-633
  • Eduard Schwartz : Greek historian . Leipzig 1957, p. 3ff. (Collection of important RE articles, including on Ephoros).