Sosylus

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sosylos (Greek Σωσύλος Sōsýlos ) was an ancient Greek historian from Sparta .

According to Cornelius Nepos , Sosylos accompanied the Carthaginian general Hannibal together with the historian Silenus von Kaleakte during the Second Punic War , “as long as fate permitted”, and taught him Greek.

Sosylos described the war in a work that consisted of seven books. With the exception of a fragment from the 4th book on a papyrus ( Würzburger Papyrus ) it is not directly preserved, but was used by later historians such as Polybius (who mentioned it together with Chaireas and polemicized against both) and Diodorus . According to the Würzburg papyrus, Sosylos reported in detail about a sea victory by Massilia over the Carthaginians, in which the Romans were also involved. The exact location of the battle is not known, although it is often located at the mouth of the Ebro and the battle dates back to 217 BC. Is set.

Text output

literature

  • Guido Schepens: The West Greeks in ancient and modern universal history. Critical reflections on the Sosylos papyrus . In: Rüdiger Kinsky (Ed.): Diorthoseis. Contributions to the history of Hellenism and the afterlife of Alexander the great . Leipzig 2004, pp. 73-107.
  • Frank W. Walbank : A Historical Commentary on Polybius. 3 vols. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1957–1979.
  • Giuseppe Zecchini: Ancora sul Papiro Würzburg e su Sosilo . In: Bärbel Kramer et al. (Ed.): Files of the 21st International Papyrology Congress . Berlin 1993, pp. 1061ff.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Cornelius Nepos, Hannibal 13.3. Accordingly, Hannibal and Sosylos parted ways at an unknown point in time.
  2. ↑ See also Ulrich Wilcken : A Sosylos fragment in the Würzburg papyrus collection. In: Hermes. Volume 41, 1906, pp. 103-141.
  3. ↑ See the commentary by Duane Roller in Brill's New Jacoby No. 176, fragment 1.
  4. ↑ Schepens, Die Westgriechen , pp. 80f., Note 18.
personal data
SURNAME Sosylus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Σωσύλος (Greek)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION ancient Greek historian
DATE OF BIRTH 3rd century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH 3rd century BC BC or 2nd century BC Chr.