Nowhere is the contrast between the historical methods of Herodotus and Thucydides more apparent than in the treatment of the causes of events. The distinction between the occasion and the cause is constantly present to the mind of Thucydides, and it is his tendency to make too little rather than too much of the personal factor. Sometimes, however, it may be doubted whether his explanation of the causes of an event is adequate or correct. In tracing the causes of the Peloponnesian War itself, modern writers are disposed to allow more weight to the commercial rivalry of Corinth; while in the case of the Sicilian expedition, they would actually reverse his judgment (ii. 65 ὁ ἐς Σικελίαν πλοῦς ὃς οὐ τοσοῦτον γνώμης ἁμάρτημα ἦν πρὸς οὓς ἐπῄεσαν). To us it seems that the very idea of the expedition implied a gigantic miscalculation of the resources of Athens and of the difficulty of the task. His judgments of men and of measures have been criticized by writers of different schools and from different points of view. Grote criticized his verdict upon Cleon, while he accepted his estimate of the policy of Pericles. More recent writers, on the other hand, have accepted his view of Cleon, while they have selected for attack his appreciation alike of the policy and the strategy of Pericles. He has been charged, too, with failure to do justice to the statesmanship of Alcibiades.[29] There are cases, undoubtedly, in which the balance of recent opinion will be adverse to the view of Thucydides. There are many more in which the result of criticism has been to establish his view. That he should occasionally have been mistaken in his judgment and his views is certainly no detraction from his claim to greatness.

On the whole, it may be said that while the criticism of Herodotus, since Grote wrote, has tended seriously to modify our view of the Persian Wars, as well as of the earlier history, the criticism of Thucydides, in spite of its imposing bulk, has affected but slightly our view of the course of the Peloponnesian War. The labours of recent workers in this field have borne most fruit where they have been directed to subjects neglected by Thucydides, such as the history of political parties, or the organization of the empire (G. Gilbert’s Innere Geschichte Athens im Zeitalter des pel. Krieges is a good example of such work).

In regard to Thucydides’ treatment of the period between the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars (the so-called Pentecontaëteris) it should be remembered that he does not profess to give, even in outline, the history of this period as a whole. The period is regarded simply as a prelude to the Peloponnesian War. There is no attempt to sketch the history of the Greek world or of Greece proper during this period. There is, indeed, no attempt to give a complete sketch of Athenian history. His object is to trace the growth of the Athenian Empire, and the causes that made the war inevitable. Much is therefore omitted not only in the history of the other Greek states, especially the Peloponnesian, but even in the history of Athens. Nor does Thucydides attempt an exact chronology. He gives us a few dates (e.g. surrender of Ithome, in the tenth year, i. 103; of Thasos, in the third year, i. 101; duration of the Egyptian expedition six years, i. 110; interval between Tanagra and Oenophyta 61 days, i. 108; revolt of Samos, in the sixth year after the Thirty Years’ Truce, i. 115), but from these data alone it would be impossible to reconstruct the chronology of the period. In spite of all that can be gleaned from our other authorities, our knowledge of this, the true period of Athenian greatness, must remain slight and imperfect as compared with our knowledge of the next thirty years.

Of the secondary authorities for this period the two principal ones are Diodorus (xi. 38 to xii. 37) and Plutarch. Diodorus is of value chiefly in relation to Sicilian affairs, to which he devotes about a third of this section of his work Diodorus. and for which he is almost our sole authority. His source for Sicilian history is the Sicilian writer Timaeus (q.v.), an author of the 3rd century B.C. For the history of Greece Proper during the Pentecontaetia Diodorus contributes comparatively little of importance. Isolated notices of particular events (e.g. the Synoecism of Elis, 471 B.C., or the foundation of Amphipolis, 437 B.C.), which appear to be derived from a chronological writer, may generally be trusted. The greater part of his narrative is, however, derived from Ephorus, who appears to have had before him little authentic information for this period of Greek history other than that afforded by Thucydides’ work. Four of Plutarch’s Lives are concerned with this period, viz. Themistocles, Aristides, Cimon and Pericles. From the Aristides little can be gained. Plutarch, in this biography, appears to be mainly dependent upon Idomeneus of Lampsacus, an excessively untrustworthy Plutarch. writer of the 3rd century B.C., who is probably to be credited with the invention of the oligarchical conspiracy at the time of the battle of Plataea (ch. 13), and of the decree of Aristides, rendering all four classes of citizens eligible for the archonship (ch. 22). The Cimon, on the other hand, contains much that is valuable; such as, e.g. the account of the battle of the Eurymedon (chs. 12 and 13). To the Pericles we owe several quotations from the Old Comedy. Two other of the Lives, Lycurgus and Solon, are amongst our most important sources for the early history of Sparta and Athens respectively. Of the two (besides Pericles) which relate to the Peloponnesian War, Alcibiades adds little to what can be gained from Thucydides and Xenophon; the Nicias, on the other hand, supplements Thucydides’ narrative of the Sicilian expedition with many valuable details, which, it may safely be assumed, are derived from the contemporary historian, Philistus of Syracuse. Amongst the most valuable material afforded by Plutarch are the quotations, which occur in almost all the Lives, from the collection of Athenian decrees (ψηφισμάτων συναγωγή) formed by the Macedonian writer Craterus, in the 3rd century B.C. Two other works may be mentioned in connexion with the history of Athens. For the history of the Athenian Constitution The constitutions. down to the end of the 5th century B.C. Aristotle’s Constitution of Athens (q.v.) is our chief authority. The other Constitution of Athens, erroneously attributed to Xenophon, a tract of singular interest both on literary and historical grounds, throws a good deal of light on the internal condition of Athens, and on the system of government, both of the state and of the empire, in the age of the Peloponnesian War, during the earlier years of which it was composed.

To the literary sources for the history of Greece, especially of Athens, in the 5th century B.C. must be added the epigraphic. Few inscriptions have been discovered which date back beyond the Persian Wars. For the latter half Inscriptions. of the 5th century they are both numerous and important. Of especial value are the series of Quota-lists, from which can be calculated the amount of tribute paid by the subject-allies of Athens from the year 454 B.C. onwards. The great majority of the inscriptions of this period are of Athenian origin. Their value is enhanced by the fact that they relate, as a rule, to questions of organization, finance and administration, as to which little information is to be gained from the literary sources.

For the period between the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars Busolt, Griechische Geschichte, iii. 1, is indispensable. Hill’s Sources of Greek History, B.C. 478-431 (Oxford, 1897) is excellent. It gives the most important inscriptions in a convenient form.

III. The 4th Century to the Death of Alexander.—Of the historians who flourished in the 4th century the sole writer whose works have come down to us is Xenophon. It is a singular accident of fortune that neither of the two authors, Xenophon. who at once were most representative of their age and did most to determine the views of Greek history current in subsequent generations, Ephorus (q.v.) and Theopompus (q.v.), should be extant. It was from them, rather than from Herodotus, Thucydides or Xenophon that the Roman world obtained its knowledge of the history of Greece in the past, and its conception of its significance. Both were pupils of Isocrates, and both, therefore, bred up in an atmosphere of rhetoric. Hence their popularity and their influence. The scientific spirit of Thucydides was alien to the temper of the 4th century, and hardly more congenial to the age of Cicero or Tacitus. To the rhetorical spirit, which is common to both, each added defects peculiar to himself. Theopompus is a strong partisan, a sworn foe to Athens and to Democracy. Ephorus, though a military historian, is ignorant of the art of war. He is also incredibly careless and uncritical. It is enough to point to his description of the battle of the Eurymedon (Diodorus xi. 60-62), in which, misled by an epigram, which he supposed to relate to this engagement (it really refers to the Athenian victory off Salamis in Cyprus, 449 B.C.), he makes the coast of Cyprus the scene of Cimon’s naval victory, and finds no difficulty in putting it on the same day as the victory on shore on the banks of the Eurymedon, in Pamphylia. Only a few fragments remain of either writer, but Theopompus (q.v.) was largely used by Plutarch in several of the Lives, while Ephorus continues to be the main source of Diodorus’ history, as far as the outbreak of the Sacred War (Fragments of Ephorus in Müller’s Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum, vol.i.; of Theopompus in Hellenica Oxyrhynchia, cum Theopompi et Cratippi fragmentis, ed. B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt, 1909).

It may be at least claimed for Xenophon (q.v.) that he is free from all taint of the rhetorical spirit. It may also be claimed for him that, as a witness, he is both honest and well-informed. But, if there is no justification for the charge of deliberate falsification, it cannot be denied that he had strong political prejudices, and that his narrative has suffered from them. His historical writings are the Anabasis, an account of the expedition of the Ten Thousand, the Hellenica and the Agesilaus, a eulogy of the Spartan king. Of these the Hellenica is far the most important for the student of history. It consists of two distinct parts (though there is no ground for the theory that the two parts were separately written and published), books i. and ii., and books iii. to vii. The first two books are intended as a continuation of Thucydides’ work. They begin, quite abruptly, in the middle of the Attic year 411/10, and they carry the history down to the fall of the Thirty, in 403. Books iii. to vii., the Hellenica proper, cover the period from 401 to 362, and give the histories of the Spartan and Theban hegemonies down to the death of Epaminondas. There is thus a gap of two years between the point at which the first part ends and that at which the second part begins. The two parts differ widely, both in their aim and in the arrangement of the material. In the first part Xenophon attempts, though not with complete success, to follow the chronological method of Thucydides, and to make each successive spring, when military and naval operations were resumed after the winter’s interruption, the starting-point of a fresh section. The resemblance between the two writers ends, however, with the outward form of the narrative. All that is characteristic of Thucydides is absent in Xenophon. The latter writer shows neither skill in portraiture, nor insight into motives. He is deficient in the sense of proportion and of the distinction between occasion and cause. Perhaps his worst fault is a lack of imagination. To make a story intelligible it is necessary sometimes to put oneself in the reader’s place, and to appreciate his ignorance of circumstances and events which would be perfectly familiar to the actors in the scene or to contemporaries. It was not given to Xenophon, as it was to Thucydides, to discriminate between the circumstances that are essential and those that are not essential to the comprehension of the story. In spite, therefore, of its wealth of detail, his narrative is frequently obscure. It is quite clear that in the trial of the generals, e.g., something is omitted. It may be supplied as Diodorus has supplied it (xiii. 101), or it may be supplied otherwise. It is probable that, when under cross-examination before the council, the generals, or some of them, disclosed the commission given to Theramenes and Thrasybulus. The important point is that Xenophon himself has omitted to supply it. As it stands his narrative is unintelligible. In the first two books, though there are omissions (e.g. the loss of Nisaea, 409 B.C.), they are not so serious as in the last five, nor is the bias so evident. It is true that if the account of the rule of the Thirty given in Aristotle’s Constitution of Athens be accepted, Xenophon must have deliberately misrepresented the course of events to the prejudice of Theramenes. But it is at least doubtful whether Aristotle’s version can be sustained against Xenophon’s, though it may be admitted, not only that there are mistakes as to details in the latter writer’s narrative, but that less than justice is done to the policy and motives of the “Buskin.” The Hellenica was written, it should be remembered, at Corinth, after 362. More than forty years had thus elapsed since the events recorded in the first two books, and after so long an interval accuracy of detail, even where the detail is of importance, is not always to be expected.[30] In the second part the chronological method is abandoned. A subject once begun is followed out to its natural ending, so that sections of the narrative which are consecutive in order are frequently parallel in point of date. A good example of this will be found in book iv. In chapters 2 to 7 the history of the Corinthian war is carried down to the end of 390, so far as the operations on land are concerned, while chapter 8 contains an account of the naval operations from 394 to 388. In this second part of the Hellenica the author’s disqualifications for his task are more apparent than in the first two books. The more he is acquitted of bias in his selection of events and in his omissions, the more clearly does he stand convicted of lacking all sense of the proportion of things. Down to Leuctra (371 B.C.) Sparta is the centre of interest, and it is of the Spartan state alone that a complete or continuous history is given. After Leuctra, if the point of view is no longer exclusively Spartan, the narrative of events is hardly less incomplete. Throughout the second part of the Hellenica omissions abound which it is difficult either to explain or justify. The formation of the Second Athenian Confederacy of 377 B.C., the foundation of Megalopolis and the restoration of the Messenian state are all left unrecorded. Yet the writer who passes them over without mention thinks it worth while to devote more than one-sixth of an entire book to a chronicle of the unimportant feats of the citizens of the petty state of Phlius. Nor is any attempt made to appraise the policy of the great Theban leaders, Pelopidas and Epaminondas. The former, indeed, is mentioned only in a single passage, relating to the embassy to Susa in 368; the latter does not appear on the scene till a year later, and receives mention but twice before the battle of Mantinea. An author who omits from his narrative some of the most important events of his period, and elaborates the portraiture of an Agesilaus while not attempting the bare outline of an Epaminondas, may be honest; he may even write without a consciousness of bias; he certainly cannot rank among the great writers of history.[31]

For the history of the 4th century Diodorus assumes a higher degree of importance than belongs to him in the earlier periods. This is partly to be explained by the deficiencies of Xenophon’s Hellenica, partly by the fact that for the Diodorus. interval between the death of Epaminondas and the accession of Alexander we have in Diodorus alone a continuous narrative of events. Books xiv. and xv. of his history include the period covered by the Hellenica. More than half of book xiv. is devoted to the history of Sicily and the reign of Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse. For this period of Sicilian history he is, practically, our sole authority. In the rest of the book, as well as in book xv., there is much of value, especially in the notices of Macedonian history. Thanks to Diodorus we are enabled to supply many of the omissions of the Hellenica. Diodorus is, e.g., our sole literary authority for the Athenian naval confederation of 377. Book xvi. must rank, with the Hellenica and Arrian’s Anabasis, as one of the three principal authorities for this century, so far, at least, as works of an historical character are concerned. It is our authority for the Social and the Sacred Wars, as well as for the reign of Philip. It is a curious irony of fate that, for what is perhaps the most momentous epoch in the history of Greece, we should have to turn to a writer of such inferior capacity. For this period his material is better and his importance greater: his intelligence is as limited as ever. Who but Diodorus would be capable of narrating the siege and capture of Methone twice over, once under the year 354, and again under the year 352 (xvi. 31 and 34; cf. xii. 35 and 42; Archidamus (q.v.) dies in 434, commands Peloponnesian army in 431); or of giving three different numbers of years (eleven, ten and nine) in three different passages (chs. 14, 23 and 59) for the length of the Sacred War; or of asserting the conclusion of peace between Athens and Philip in 340, after the failure of his attack on Perinthus and Byzantium? Amongst the subjects which are omitted is the Peace of Philocrates. For the earlier chapters, which bring the narrative down to the outbreak of the Sacred War, Ephorus, as in the previous book, is Diodorus’ main source. His source for the rest of the book, i.e. for the greater part of Philip’s reign, cannot be determined. It is generally agreed that it is not the Philippica of Theopompus.

For the reign of Alexander our earliest extant authority is Diodorus, who belongs to the age of Augustus. Of the others, Q. Curtius Rufus, who wrote in Latin, lived in the reign of the emperor Claudius, Arrian and Plutarch Historians of Alexander’s reign. in the 2nd century A.D. Yet Alexander’s reign is one of the best known periods of ancient history. The Peloponnesian War and the twenty years of Roman history which begin with 63 B.C. are the only two periods which we can be said to know more fully or for which we have more trustworthy evidence. For there is no period of ancient history which was recorded by a larger number of contemporary writers, or for which better or more abundant materials were available. Of the writers actually contemporary with Alexander there were five of importance—Ptolemy, Aristobulus, Callisthenes, Onesicritus and Nearchus; and all of them occupied positions which afforded exceptional opportunities of ascertaining the facts. Four of them were officers in Alexander’s service. Ptolemy, the future king of Egypt, was one of the somatophylaces (we may, perhaps, regard them as corresponding to Napoleon’s marshals); Aristobulus was also an officer of high rank (see Arrian, Anab. vi. 29. 10); Nearchus was admiral of the fleet which surveyed the Indus and the Persian Gulf, and Onesicritus was one of his subordinates. The fifth, Callisthenes, a pupil of Aristotle, accompanied Alexander on his march down to his death in 327 and was admitted to the circle of his intimate friends. A sixth historian, Cleitarchus, was possibly also a contemporary; at any rate he is not more than a generation later. These writers had at their command a mass of official documents, such as the βασίλειοι ἐφημερίδες—the Gazette and Court Circular combined—edited and published after Alexander’s death by his secretary, Eumenes of Cardia; the σταθμοί, or records of the marches of the armies, which were carefully measured at the time; and the official reports on the conquered provinces. That these documents were made use of by the historians is proved by the references to them which are to be found in Arrian, Plutarch and Strabo; e.g. Arrian, Anab. vii. 25 and 26, and Plutarch, Alexander 76 (quotation from the βασίλειοι ἐφημερίδες); Strabo xv. 723 (reference to the σταθμοί), ii. 69 (reports drawn up on the various provinces). We have, in addition, in Plutarch numerous quotations from Alexander’s correspondence with his mother, Olympias, and with his officers. The contemporary historians may be roughly divided into two groups. On the one hand there are Ptolemy and Aristobulus, who, except in a single instance, are free from all suspicion of deliberate invention. On the other hand, there are Callisthenes, Onesicritus and Cleitarchus, whose tendency is rhetorical. Nearchus appears to have allowed full scope to his imagination in dealing with the wonders of India, but to have been otherwise veracious. Of the extant writers Arrian (q.v.) is incomparably the most valuable. His merits are twofold. As the commander of Roman legions and the author of a work on tactics, he combined a practical with a theoretical knowledge of the military art, while the writers whom he follows in the Anabasis are the two most worthy of credit, Ptolemy and Aristobulus. We may well hesitate to call in question the authority of writers who exhibit an agreement which it would be difficult to parallel elsewhere in the case of two independent historians. It may be inferred from Arrian’s references to them that there were only eleven cases in all in which he found discrepancies between them. The most serious drawback which can be alleged against them is an inevitable bias in Alexander’s favour. It would be only natural that they should pass over in silence the worst blots on their great commander’s fame. Next in value to the Anabasis comes Plutarch’s Life of Alexander, the merits of which, however, are not to be gauged by the influence which it has exercised upon literature. The Life is a valuable supplement to the Anabasis, partly because Plutarch, as he is writing biography rather than history (for his conception of the difference between the two see the famous preface, Life of Alexander, ch. i.), is concerned to record all that will throw light upon Alexander’s character (e.g. his epigrammatic sayings and quotations from his letters); partly because he tells us much about his early life, before he became king, while Arrian tells us nothing. It is unfortunate that Plutarch writes in an uncritical spirit; it is hardly less unfortunate that he should have formed no clear conception and drawn no consistent picture of Alexander’s character. Book xvii. of Diodorus and the Historiae Alexandri of Curtius Rufus are thoroughly rhetorical in spirit. It is probable that in both cases the ultimate source is the work of Clitarchus.