DRACONTIUS (LD3.279–95) AND THE SOURCE OF THE THERMOPYLAENYKTOMACHIA

Abstract

The account of the Battle of Thermopylae found in Diodorus Siculus (11.8.4–10.4) is remarkably different from the more commonly known Herodotean version of events (7.201–33). Most strikingly, his account includes details of a night raid on the Persian camp made by Leonidas and his men. Diodorus’ principal source for this section of the narrative, historians generally agree, was Ephorus of Cyme (c. 405–330b.c.). This tradition was later taken up also by Justin (2.11.12–18) and Plutarch (De malignitate Herodoti866a). But who was Ephorus’ source? Many believe that Ephorus simply made it up. However, Michael Flower, in a discussion of Ephorus and his sources, rightly I think, dismisses this verdict on a number of accounts. Firstly, he questions the willingness of Ephorus’ audience to accept this novel version without Ephorus providing a suitable source for it. Secondly, he points out that scholars have never conclusively demonstrated that Ephorus simply fabricated the events that he related. Instead, dismissing the Greek physician Ctesias of Cnidus (‘It could not have come from Ctesias’), who was active during the last decades of the fifth and early part of the fourth centuryb.c., Flower argues for the possibility that the lyric poetry of Simonides of Ceos was Ephorus’ source. It is the argument of this paper that Flower dismisses Ctesias as a source for the Thermopylaenyktomachiatoo quickly, and that by combining information found in Dracontius (De laudibus Dei3.279–95) and Tertullian (Apologeticum9.6) it is probable to conclude that Ctesias is indeed the source for this alternative tradition.