A historical commentary on Diodorus Siculus, Book 15

"For long stretches of Greek history in the classical period, Diodorus Siculus provides the only surviving continuous narrative of events. This study, the fullest ever undertaken of Diodorus, examines his aims, sources, and methods in detail. The findings of this investigation are then applied in commenting on Book 15, which deals with the crucial years between the King's Peace, concluded in 387/6 BC, and the aftermath of the battle of Mantinea fought in 362 BC"--Publisher description For long stretches of Greek history in the classical period, Diodorus Siculus provides the only surviving continuous narrative of events. For this narrative he summarized, however incompetently, the work of earlier and greater historians whose original texts are lost to us. This makes Diodorus an invaluable quarry for the historian and the historiographer alike, but one that can be used only with discretion. We need to get as clear an idea as we can of the way his mind worked, where his account is most likely to be useful, and what sort of distortions to expect when he goes astray. The present study, the fullest ever undertaken for any part of Diodorus, aims to meet the needs of both history and historiography. In the introduction, necessarily substantial, the aims, sources, and methods of Diodorus are examined in detail. The findings of this investigation are then applied in commenting on Book 15, a particularly important book which deals with the crucial years between the King's Peace, concluded in 387/6 BC, and the aftermath of the battle of Mantinea fought in 362 BC.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction, Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.