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EPHORUS OF CYME FRAGMENTS MANUAL

He was commended for drawing (though not always) a sharp line of demarcation between the mythical and historical he even recognized that a profusion of detail, though lending corroborative force to accounts of recent events, is ground for suspicion, in reports of far-distant history. According to ancient writers, he was respected as an able and thorough, though somewhat dull historiographer. Critiques Īccording to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, his surviving writings all show a certain lack of passion, in spite of his keen interest in matters of style, and of political partisanship, except for his enthusiasm for Cyme. ĭespite having written all these works, nothing but isolated fragments survived from the ancient world.

An Essay on Style, his only rhetorical work, which is occasionally mentioned by the rhetorician Theon (rhetorician).

EPHORUS OF CYME FRAGMENTS MANUAL

The Book of Goodness, his manual on achieving happiness and pleasing others.

A Treatise on my Country, on the history and antiquities of Cyme.

On Remarkable Things in Various Countries (it is doubtful whether these were separate works, or just extracts from the Histories).

Music was invented to deceive and delude mankind. He also wrote Peri heurematon (Περὶ εὑρημάτων), a book about inventions, and Peri lexeos (Περὶ λέξεως), "On Style". Additional works īesides the universal history, Ephorus wrote an Epichorios logos (Ἐπιχώριος λόγος), a patriotic essay in which he praised the traditions of Cyme. Polybius, while crediting him with a knowledge of the conditions of naval warfare, ridiculed his description of the battle of Mantinea as showing ignorance of the nature of land operations. In his Geographica, Strabo quoted Ephorus at length. Strabo attached much importance to Euphorus's geographical investigations, and praised him for being the first to separate the historical from the simply geographical element. Large parts of the history of Diodorus Siculus may have originated in Ephorus's history. His history was highly praised and read in Antiquity, and later ancient historians freely drew upon his work. It is clear that Ephorus made critical use of the best authorities. These writings are generally believed to be the main or sole source for Diodorus Siculus' account of the history of Greece between 480 and 340 BC, which is one of only two continuous narratives of this period that survive.

The work was probably simply named Historiai, and followed a thematic, rather than a strictly chronological order in its narrative. For each of the 29 separate books Ephorus wrote a prooimion. According to Polybius, Ephorus was the first historian ever to author a universal history. The whole work, edited by his son Demophilus-who added a 30th book-contained a summary description of the Sacred War, along with other narratives from the days of the Heraclids up until the taking of Perinthus in 340 BC by Philip of Macedon, covering a time span of more than seven hundred years. The fruit of his labours was a set of 29 books, his universal history. His son Demophilus followed in his footsteps as a historian. According to Plutarch, Ephorus declined Alexander the Great's offer to join him on his Persian campaign as the official historiographer. He does not seem to have made much progress as a speaker, and at the suggestion of Isocrates himself he took up literary composition and the study of history.

He was born in Cyme, Aeolia, and together with the historian Theopompus was a pupil of Isocrates in rhetoric.