Ephorus of Cyme and Greek Historiography

Reconstructs Ephorus' lost Histories – the first “universal history”, according to Polybius – through a new reading of the fragments.

Giovanni Parmeggiani (Author)

9781108926423, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 10 April 2025

450 pages
22.8 x 15.1 x 2.3 cm, 0.65 kg

'A careful study of the fragments and their contexts … Parmeggiani has worked mightily to rehabilitate his author …' Craige Champion, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Ephorus of Cyme, who lived in the fourth century BC, is one of the most important historians of antiquity whose work has not survived and, according to Polybius, was the first to have written a universal history. His lost Histories are known from numerous 'fragments', that is, quotations by later authors such as Polybius, Diodorus, Strabo and Plutarch, among others. Through a study of these 'fragments' within their broader context, Giovanni Parmeggiani throws new light on the methodology of Ephorus and both the contents and the purpose of his work. By changing our perspective on a major Greek historian between Thucydides and Polybius, this book fills a significant gap in the field, and sets the basis for a new conception of the history of ancient Greek historiography and the Greek intellectual development in general.

Introduction
1. Questions and answers
2. Ephorus' Histories: the method
3. Ephorus' Histories: the contents
4. Ephorus the universal historian
Conclusions
Appendix: Ephorus and the Hellenika Oxyrhynchia.

Subject Areas: Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA]