Diodorus

Diodorus
of Agyrium, Sicily (hence Diodorus Siculus) is the author of the Bibliothēkē (‘Library’), a universal history from mythological times to 60 BC. Only 15 of the original 40 books survive fully (bks. 1–5; 11–20); the others are preserved in fragments. Despite his claim to cover all of known history, Diodorus concentrates on Greece and his homeland of Sicily, until the First Punic War (264–241 BC), when his sources for Rome become fuller. But even in its fragmentary state, the Bibliothēkē is the most extensively preserved history by a Greek author from antiquity. For the period from the accession of Philip II of Macedon to the battle of Ipsus (301 BC), when the text becomes fragmentary, it is fundamental; and it is the essential source for classical Sicilian history and the Sicilian slave rebellions of the 2nd cent. bc. For many individual events throughout Graeco-Roman history, the Bibliothēkē...

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