Hellanicus as Peripheral and a Critic of Athens? Notes on a Study of a Fragmentary Historian

Abstract

This paper explores the possibility of imagine Hellanicus of Lesbos as a politically critical author. Many works suggest that Hellanicus was a partisan of Athens or at least a sympathizer of that polis. However new approaches have proposed that authors like Herodotus criticized the external politics of Athens, even in subtle ways. Therefore this paper argues the possibilities of thinking on Hellanicus as a peripheral critic of Athenian politics and on the limitations the fragmentary condition of the texts imposes.