successors source

Discuss the wars of Alexander's successors

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spitamenes
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successors source

Post by spitamenes »

With Alexander we have the regular sources in which we can look up what we wish, and have a fairly good grip on what we can and can't find within them. I was wondering if there are any ancient sources that still survive that focus on one single, or all the successors. Or do we get all of our knowledge about the Kings senior officers merely through the standard Alexander sources? I should probably know this but my sources for literature on Alexander are somewhat limited. If there is a good source for information, ancient or modern, please let me know. Thank you all.
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Re: successors source

Post by marcus »

spitamenes wrote:With Alexander we have the regular sources in which we can look up what we wish, and have a fairly good grip on what we can and can't find within them. I was wondering if there are any ancient sources that still survive that focus on one single, or all the successors. Or do we get all of our knowledge about the Kings senior officers merely through the standard Alexander sources? I should probably know this but my sources for literature on Alexander are somewhat limited. If there is a good source for information, ancient or modern, please let me know. Thank you all.
Hi Spitamenes,

Generally speaking, the ancient sources (and even 'later' ones - I've just been reading Paulus Orosius, from the 5th century), deal with all the Successors, encompassing the entire Diodochi Wars within their scope - probably one of the reasons why it's all so confusing.

However, there have been a spate of books over the years, dealing with the individual successors - off the top of my head there is one on Seleucus by John Grainger, one on Antigonus by Richard Billows; and I know there is a Lysimachus one but I can't remember who wrote it.

Not individual biogs from the ancient sources, unless you count Plutarch's Life of Demetrius (Poliorcetes).

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Re: successors source

Post by Alexias »

ER Bevan, The House of Ptolemy (1927) gives an outline of the Egyptian side of things. It is downloadable for free from here http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/G ... /home.html
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Re: successors source

Post by agesilaos »

The Lysimachos book is by Helen Lund, the ancient sources are primarily Diodoros Books 18-20, Plutarch's lives of Demetrios, Pyrrhus, Eumenes, Phocion and Demosthenes, we have a continuous narrative in Justin's Epitome of The Philippic History of Trogus, but his value is suspect as are all the supplementary sources such as Aelan's Varia Historia and Pausanias, Strabo and Athenaeus have stories of varying worth. Modern syntheses include Paul Cloche 'Dislocation d'une Empire' which is good but in French, Peter Green has 'From Alexander to Actium' and Edward Anson 'Eumenes of Cardia: a Greek Among Macedonians' Peter Garafoulas 'Pyrrhus'....a good place to look would be Waldemar Heckel's site of bibliographies for both Alexander and the successors unfortunately the link at the University of calgary site seems to be broken.
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Re: successors source

Post by Paralus »

What he wrote.

To which I'd add Billows' "Kings and Colonists" (though far more wide ranging) and Bosworth's "Legacy of Alexander". An indespensible overview of the primary source material in translation (necessarily selective) is Michael Austin's "The Hellenistic World from Alexander to the Roman Conquest".

The only continuos narrative primary source is Diodorus 18-20 as Agesilaos has noted. Those who despise the Sicilian miss him awfully when his extant manuscripts fail us.
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spitamenes
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Re: successors source

Post by spitamenes »

agesilaos wrote: we have a continuous narrative in Justin's Epitome of The Philippic History of Trogus
So Justin is a continuous narrative of Trogus correct? How accurate is this narrative supposed to be compared to Trogus? And do we know where Trogus got his information? Like I stated earlier, I do not have access to many of these books I hear of so I'm trying to be selective when I do decide to purchase one. Thanks everyone for they're input. It is greatly appreciated.
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Re: successors source

Post by marcus »

spitamenes wrote:
agesilaos wrote: we have a continuous narrative in Justin's Epitome of The Philippic History of Trogus
So Justin is a continuous narrative of Trogus correct? How accurate is this narrative supposed to be compared to Trogus? And do we know where Trogus got his information? Like I stated earlier, I do not have access to many of these books I hear of so I'm trying to be selective when I do decide to purchase one. Thanks everyone for they're input. It is greatly appreciated.
Many of the Greek and Roman sources are available online.

If you PM me your email address I can send you Justin electronically, Diodorus too if you want it. When I'm on my home PC I can also give you the website addresses where you can access other sources in translation (or in the original language).

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