Hellanicus of Lesbos as the Initiator of the Practice of Annual Recording of Events in Ancient Greek Historical Writing
Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Sciences
For citation: Surikov, Igor E. Hellanicus of Lesbos as the Initiator of the Practice of Annual Recording of Events in Ancient Greek Historical Writing // Graphosphaera. 2024. Vol. 4. № 2. P. 11–26. URL: http://writing.igh.ru/index.php?id=2024-4-2-11-26
DOI: 10.32608/2782-5272-2024-4-2-11-26
Abstract: Hellanicus of Lesbos was one of major Greek historians of the 5th century B. C. His main contribution to the development of historical writing is connected with scrupulous elaboration (in works of the last period of his life) of problems of chronology, which was not a subject of sufficient attention for preceding authors. Contrary to a previously widespread opinion, now it is clear that Archaic Greece (unlike Rome) had no historical chronicles, which recorded events annually. First Greek historians (Hecataeus, Pherecydes, even Herodotus) also did not resort to such recording: they used genealogical chronology. Accordingly, in their works, there are almost no exact dates and there is much chronological confusion. As for Hellanicus, he, in his treatise Priestesses of Hera in Argos (the 420s B. C.) elaborated system of eponymous chronology; for more accurate dating of events, he started synchronizing eponymous officials of various states of the Greek world (such as Athenian archons and Spartan ephors), and his “tuning fork” for such a synchronization was the list of supreme priestesses of the Argive Hera’s sanctuary. Thucydides, who criticized Hellanicus for lack of acribia, nevertheless used his Priestesses.
Key words: Hellanicus of Lesbos, Classical Greece, historical writing, chronology, Herodotus, Thucydides
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