Paralus wrote:Written in Italian?
Yes, it is written in Italian, but there are plans for an English translation. It might take years, of course, before that will actually be published. The plan is to produce a commentary on the whole Bibliotheca and if they will wait until the whole project is finished before the translation will be undertaken, that will be quite a long time.
Paralus wrote: whilst there is no direct and incontrovertible evidence for Hieronymus being the sole source, the fragments and their match up point to him being the major source. Diodorus also mentions Hieronymus (…)
Actually there is hardly any significant match up between Diodorus XVIII-XX and the fragments of Hieronymus. In fact, there are hardly fragments of Hieronymus, and most of them are just one or two sentences.
The fragment on the death of Ariarathes from Pseudo-Lucian agrees with Diodorus about the way he was killed, and it has two words in common with Diodorus, but “battle” (machê) is hardly a telling one and “capture” (zôgrein) not much more so. It is a word that occurs throughout Diodorus’ work in battle descriptions. Furthermore, Appian (Mithr. 8) gives a different version of Ariarathes’ death (hanged instead of crucified), just after having quoted Hieronymus’ claim that Alexander did not conquer Kappadokia because he decided to deal with Darius first. The different manner of death might be Appian’s own inaccuracy, of course, but it is not immaterial, because the statement on the conquest of Kappadokia is another of the few fragments where Diodorus’ text corresponds with Hieronymus. Diodorus too claims twice (XVIII 3.1 and 16.1) that Alexander had not conquered Kappadokia because of the war with Darius. The latter of these two instances, however does not necessarily agree with Hieronymus’ version on Alexander and Cappadocia. It is equally compatible with Arrian’s verison (Anab II 2.4). Such might even be the case with the former. We must never forget that Diodorus and Appian were summarizing their sources here, and accuracy all too often went lost in the process.
The fragment on the dead sea is not very telling either:
“Hieronymus relates that in the country of the Nabataean Arabs there is a bitter lake, in which there are neither fish nor other aquatic creatures, but the local people gather blocks of asphalt out of it.” (translation from attalus.org)
Diodorus mentions the same fact, but there is no reason why he could not have found that fact in a different author. Indeed the Dead Sea episode is one of the four places where Diodorus mentions Hieronymus, but Hieronymus was in charge of the expedition: he had to be mentioned.
Then there is Athenaeus’ statement that Hieronymus was famous for his description of Alexander’s funeral carriage. We do not have a single word of this description, however, and Diodorus might just as well have found such a description in another source. Ancient authors loved describing works of art, and this one was so spectacular, and related to such an important person, that many other historians will have described it.
The other fragments are even less useful. Furthermore, there is also a correspondence with a fragment of Duris (on the etymology name of Rhagae in XIX 44) and with Dyillus on the burial of Eurydike and Arrhidaios and Kassandros (in XIX 52). Neither case carries much weight, but neither do the correspondences with Hieronymus.
As to the mentioning of Hieronymus, as in the case already discussed above, he is never mentioned as a source, but always as an actor in the events. Marsyas of Pella, another historian, is also mentioned (in book XX), and no one argues that he must have been Diodorus’ source.
Paralus wrote:It is often taken for granted that this is the source of the Eumenid apologia – as Billows and, I think, Jane Hornblower call it – that dominates books 18 and 19. (…) Other sources are often argued for on the basis, for example, of the favourable treatment of Ptolemy.
The treatment of and focus on Eumenes is indeed the most compelling argument, but then again, the focus could also be the result of Diodorus’ selection. It cannot be denied that Diodorus was able at least to chose what he wanted to include and what not, and Eumenes’ story obviously was a popular one because of all his reversals of fortune which Diodorus (and other ancient historians) loved so much. Garvin (
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2006/2006-11-04.html) also has an alternative explanation for the focus on Eumenes: he simply was a kind central figure to whose history all other threads could be tied. However that may be, the apologia does remain a not unattractive argument, but it is virtually the only one with some force.
Indeed Ptolemy and others are sometimes treated very positively, and it is difficult to assume that such praise for Antigonos’ ennemies came from Hieronymus. Moreover, as Landucci has often stressed, many passages are negative about Antigonos and they are not likely to have come from his own historian either. That Hieronymus wrote in the time of Gonatas and not during Monophthalmos’ reign is an argument that can only be upheld by those who want to explain the problem away. Ancestors were important to Hellenistic kings (one need only think of Gonatas’ progonoi monument here).
Paralus wrote:Again, I don’t buy the argument that Diodorus epitomised an earlier epitomiser: his description of events following Triparadeisos, the Iranian campaign and especially the ethnographic discourses (Indian women and the Nabateans) don’t seem to be an abridgment of some Reader’s Digest Hieronymus.
It need not have been a reader’s digest. The history of Agatharchides, for instance, might have been much more elaborate on these events than Diodorus, but probably less so than Hieronymus’. He could be the intermediary. But of course, one of the reasons why this theory exists is the assumption that Diodorus always worked from a single source, but he seems not to have done so in book XVI. Consequently, he need not have done so in XVIII-XX, but he might have if he found one that was suitable.
Thus, there are many questions and very few answers. I do not see any conclusive evidence for direct use of Hieronymus, and if Diodorus did use Hieronymus, the Cardian certainly was not his only source. That is about all that can be concluded about the matter, imho.