1.

Introduction
Giovanni Parmeggiani
In the modern reception of ancient Greek history, the fourth century BCE has
always been seen as a period of transition from the golden Classical age of the
fifth century to the Hellenistic period an appendix to the former, a prologue to
the latter. Given this peculiar and unfavourable intermediary position, the
fourth century has often been seen in a negative light, and has never really
gained the status of an age with a proper, legitimate identity.
It is a widespread opinion that, as often happens with periods of transition, the
fourth century was, above all, a time of decadence (decadence of the Greek
polis, and of Greek historiography). Considering that many political and cultural
changes did take place in the period 404323 BCE, however, the concept of
decadence is hardly helpful. On the contrary, since it has been brought into
play in order to explain the transition from the greatness of the Classical to the
Hellenistic age, it appears to reflect the prejudice that the fifth century was the
pinnacle of the Greek cultural experience as a whole. It goes without saying
that such a perspective is affected by a classicist bias and is, in every respect,
questionable. The idea that the time when founders of Western thought such as
Plato and Aristotle lived, and also the literature they shared, was decadent
does not seem particularly convincing.
The fourth century has always suffered from comparison with the fifth. This is
an initial difficulty that every modern scholar has to deal with when studying
fourth-century historiography and, more generally, the way that fourth-century
literature dealt with the past. Indeed, one could speak of the shadow that the
fifth century casts on the fourth. Just as Photius the Patriarch was puzzled by
Theopompus of Chios self-praise, observing that the superiority Theopompus
claimed for himself over fifth-century predecessors was inconceivable because
of the undisputed greatness of Herodotus and Thucydides, [1] similarly Felix
Jacoby stated in 1926 that Greek historiography reached its perfection with
Thucydides, thus implying that historians of the fourth century could not match
the greatness of their predecessor. [2] Abstieg nach Thukydides, dixit Jacoby,
and once again the concept of decadence creeps in, as a consequence of the
preconceived superiority of the fifth century. Things do not appear to have
changed much since the time of Photius (ninth century CE).
Classicist prejudices are prevalent even today. But a closer examination of
Theopompus own words as they have been transmitted to us by Photius would
suffice to make clear that Theopompus was not simply praising himself, but
also the literature of his time, seemingly regardless of genre boundaries. If we
cannot agree a priori with Theopompus (for in so doing we would simply
reverse the classicist bias), we should meditate on this statement and take it as
a starting point for a careful reexamination of fourth-century culture.
A survey of the Trmmerfeld (field of ruins) of ancient Greek historiography
as Hermann Strasburger memorably called it [3] and of fourth-century

historiography in particular, gives discouraging results. The most important

works of that time, admired by the ancients for centuries, survive only in
scanty fragments, mostly citations by later authors. This obviously complicates
interpretation, since the manner of citation is diverse and often driven by
agendas and interests that have nothing to do with those of the original author.
Recent studies, for example, have shown how the various biases of Polybius,
Athenaeus, and Diodorus distort our image of the lost historical works that they
made use of and quoted. [4] The shadow projected by the citing author over
the author cited presents a second difficulty in dealing with the fourth century
the cover text, as Guido Schepens taught us some time ago, [5] and as is
illustrated in various papers collected in the present volume, always requires a
careful approach and in-depth study.
On top of this, there is a third difficulty we need to consider the tendency of
modern critics to use inadequate concepts for defining and understanding
fourth-century literature. This approach has obviously led to serious
misunderstandings, as in the case of Isocrates (Marincola, this volume) and
Xenophon (Nicolai, this volume). The concept of rhetorical historiography is a
major case in point. It rests on the false premises that Isocrates, as the teacher
of Ephorus and Theopompus, was the proponent of an historiographical
program and that devoting attention to style and using historical exempla are
practices incompatible with the search for the truth. Thus, the concept of
rhetorical historiography not only hides the real nature of Ephorus and
Theopompus historiography (see below), but prevents us from understanding
Isocrates in a more constructive way as an intellectual who participated in the
debates on the meaning and utility of history (an abiding interest for every
intellectual in the fourth century, and not for historians alone). Similarly,
modern critics tend to apply misleading labels to Xenophon and his works.
Accordingly, they fail to understand that he, like Isocrates, was an
experimenter in various prose genres, and did not feel compelled to conform to
pre-existing models, but rather changed them, freely moving from one genre to
another within a single work.
Once we become aware of the pitfalls outlined above, new and more
constructive avenues of interpretation open up. Indeed, the last point indicates
a fundamental feature of the fourth century. It seems that intellectuals of this
periodhistorians, orators, and philosophers alikelooked for new modes of
writing, deliberately crossing the boundaries between genres. Perhaps because
the boundaries of prose genres were yet to be clearly defined (as in the case of
historiography, see below), and also because intellectuals did not think that
knowledge was the prerogative of a particular discipline, they could afford to
move freely across generic boundaries on the basis of particular goals. This
was an age for experimenters and innovators, an age for polymaths.
Unsurprisingly, the fourth century was the time when philosophers such as
Aristotle were able, when necessary, to practice history with a high degree of
methodological awareness, clearly inspired by the method of Thucydides
(Bertelli, this volume).

Certainly, the fourth century was also the time when historiography, by
distinguishing itself from other disciplines, became a literary genre (genos
historikon) with precise methods and aims. One may say that defining and
crossing boundaries are two closely connected activities, and in this respect,
Theopompus of Chios contribution was decisive (Vattuone, this volume). One
of the most complex and important intellectuals of the fourth centuryon a par
with Isocrates, Xenophon, and Aristotlethe historian Theopompus is often
remembered as philalethes by ancient authors. Indeed, he never disavowed
Thucydides historical credo, but rather extended the purview of historical
inquiry, by insisting that the practice of historiography was not a parergon,
something to be carried out on the side, but rather required a specific method
of research, i.e. a thoughtful use of the sources.
On this, a comparative look at other fourth-century historians may be
instructive. Xenophon, in his Hellenica, appears to have been less interested in
documents than Thucydides had been. Nonetheless, his use of documents
seems consistent with his predecessors, with documents serving
historiographical and not merely decorative purposes (Bearzot, this volume).
Ephorus of Cyme drew upon comedy not as an authority to be blindly followed,
as scholars have sometimes thought, but as evidence demonstrating that
Pericles responsibility for the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War was publicly
debated by contemporaries and that his rhetorical strength was a decisive
factor in initiating the war (Parmeggiani, this volume). Ephorus thus evinces a
sophisticated approach to historical evidence. In this respect, we have every
reason to conclude that fourth-century historians succeeded in maintaining the
high standards of their fifth-century predecessors, and may even have
surpassed them.
Concepts of continuity and development actually describe the relationship
between fifth- and fourth-century historiography better than discontinuity and
regression. Theopompus expanded the field of aitiai alongside the causes of
events, he studied the reasons for mens actions, their aims, plans, wishes, and
passions. The Thucydidean aetiology of aphanesi.e. the historical practice of
revealing the most hidden causes of events and actionswas, in this way,
strengthened. A similar claim can be advanced for Ephorus. His version of the
causes of the Peloponnesian War testifies to how his consideration of new data
and his disclosure of Pericles thoughts and aims extended Thucydides point of
view on the causes of the war to give a different and, above all, a more
complete picture. Ephorus treated Pericles personal affairs, the internal politics
of Athens, the politics of the Delian League, and the relationship between
Athens and Sparta as interwoven problems (Parmeggiani, this volume). The
increased attention devoted to historical causation is visible also in the fact
that even fourth-century writers of Persica, a genre that bordered on
ethnography, paid greater attention to explanation than did their fifth-century
predecessors (Lenfant, this volume).
Clearly there is much more at stake than the simple praise and blame that
modern critics usually ascribe to Ephorus and Theopompusand to various

other historiansas if it were the only cause and purpose of their works. If the
paradigmatic vision of history was crucial for some authors who, like Xenophon,
did not feel compelled to adhere to the boundaries of genos historikon, the
same cannot be said for others, such as Ephorus and Theopompus, who worked
on the contrary to define these boundaries. Once again, we see that the
concept of rhetorical historiography does not adequately define Ephorus and
Theopompus work and historiographical practice. We may also observe this in
other respects. According to the traditional view of the fourth century, the
collapse of the polis system gave rise to a new historiography, whose interest
was mainly in ethics and literature, and not in politics (this being an effect of
the corruption of historiography by rhetoric). But far from being out of sight,
politics were in fact crucial in the works of Ephorus and Theopompus. This is
suggested by, for example, the choice by Ephorus of the Return of the
Heraclidae as the starting point for his Histories. In the age of Philip II of
Macedon, the Return appears to have played a prominent role in political
debates, to the point that no writer of an history of Greece could ignore it. The
very choice of such a beginning, then, confirms that Ephorus approach to
history was informed by his awareness of contemporary politics (Luraghi, this
volume). The attention Ephorus paid to Spartan history as a central theme in
his work points to a similar conclusion (Tully, this volume, discussing whether
Universal History is a legitimate label for Ephorus Histories).
Ephorus is another major piece in the complicated puzzle of the fourth-century
intellectual milieu. [6] But let us briefly consider, beyond the central figures we
have already mentioned, the complexity of the historical frame. In the same
way as the boundaries between disciplines were not clearly defined, or were in
the process of being defined, so the wider Greek political situation in the period
404323 BCE was in flux and susceptible to radical change. Since the last years
of the Peloponnesian War (from 412 BCE), the Athenians had progressively lost
their empire, while the Persians again played an active, indeed even dominant
role in Greek politics. In order to understand the implications of this more
clearly, we need to perform a mental experiment of sorts, thinking ourselves
into the years between the Kings Peace and the Sacred War, a time when
everybody thought the Achaemenid Empire was there to stay (as impressively
shown by Tuplin, this volume). Fourth-century writers of Persica focused their
attention on the Persian king and his court, and in so doing, gave rise to a kind
of political ethnography that makes sense only in this political context
(Lenfant, this volume). Finally, from the middle of the fourth century onward,
the rise of Macedon had a deep impact on historiography Theopompus
subsumed the entire history of Greece under the deeds of Philip II (Vattuone,
this volume), focusing his attention on the Macedonian king and his court.
Both these facts are testimony to the persistent centrality of politics within
fourth-century historiography, despite the claims of many modern critics, who
prefer to depict fourth-century historiography as a mere reaction to the literary
tradition. After Aegospotami (405 BCE), the Spartans failed to replace the
Athenians in the Aegean, both politically and culturally, and the cities of Asia
Minor filled this cultural vacuum by each reasserting their own political and

cultural identity, by recording local deeds, traditionseven if mutually

conflictingand monuments (Thomas, this volume). Something similar
happened, one may observe, with the outstanding individuals of the age, who
crafted their uniqueness before the public through statues, monuments and
historical works (Ferrario, this volume) memory was the battleground for
identity, for individuals and communities alike. The flourishing of localpolis
histories in the fourth century, especially in the Ionian poleis, seems better
explained as a consequence of the need for political and cultural self-assertion
against the hegemonic claims of Athens and Persia, than as a literary reaction
as Jacoby maintainedto the grand history of the struggle between
Persians and Greeks (Thomas, this volume). Once again, we must conclude, the
variety of forms of fourth-century historiography seems to find its roots in
politics, and not in the inner dynamics of a literary tradition supposedly
disconnected from politics.
A better understanding of fourth-century historiography and of fourth-century
literature that dealt more generally with the past becomes possible when we
put these writings into context, i.e. when we pay attention to their period and
its historical specificity. When we put aside the preconceived notions that have
long influenced modern critics, the fourth century appears in its full light as a
period of innovations, problematic but stimulating, and in no way inferior to the
fifth. The editor and the scholars who have contributed to the present volume
will be satisfied if the collected papers provoke the reader to rethink, as now
seems necessary, this complex of problems.
Bibliography
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Felix Jacoby zu seinem achtzigsten Geburtstag am 19 Mrz 1956. Leiden.
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Lenfant, D., ed. 2007. Athne et les fragments dhistoriens, Actes du colloque
de Strasbourg, 1618 juin 2005. Paris.
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Strasburger, H. 1977. Umblick im Trmmerfeld der griechischen

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Footnotes
[ back ] 1. Photius Bibliotheca 176.121a (Theopompus FGH 115 F 25).
[ back ] 2. See Jacoby 1909 and 1926.
[ back ] 3. Strasburger 1977.
[ back ] 4. On Polybius, see Schepens and Bollanse 2005. On Athenaeus, see
Lenfant 2007. On Diodorus, specifically in relation to Ephorus, see now
Parmeggiani 2011.
[ back ] 5. See Schepens 1997166n66 for the concept of cover-text.
[ back ] 6. For a new and comprehensive examination of the existing evidence
on Ephorus, presenting a reconstruction of the contents of his Histories and a
definition of his historical aims and method of research, see Parmeggiani 2011.