Diodorus Siculus, Library

Contents of the Fifteenth Book of Diodorus

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XCIV. In the Peloponnese, though the Arcadians had agreed on a general peace after the battle of Mantineia, they adhered to their covenant only a year before they renewed the war. In the covenant it was written that each should return to his respective native country after the battle, but there had come into the city of Megalopolis¹ the inhabitants of neighbouring cities who had been moved to new homes and were finding transplantation from their own homes difficult to bear. Consequently when they had returned to the cities which had formerly been theirs, the Megalopolitans tried to compel them to abandon their homelands. [2] And when for this reason a quarrel arose, the townsfolk asked the Mantineians and certain other Arcadians to help them, and also the Eleians and the other peoples that were members of the alliance with the Mantineians, whereas the Megalopolitans besought the Thebans to fight with them as allies. The Thebans speedily dispatched to them three thousand hoplites and three hundred cavalry with Pammenes as their commander. [3] He came to Megalopolis, and by sacking some of the towns and terrifying others he compelled their inhabitants to change their abode to Megalopolis. So the problem of the amalgamation of the cities, after it had reached such a state of turmoil. was reduced to such calm as was possible.

[4] Of the historians, Athanas² of Syracuse wrote thirteen books beginning with the events attending and following Dion's expedition, but he prefixed, in one book, an account of the period of seven years not recorded in the treatise of Philistus and by recording these events in summary fashion made of the history a continuous narrative.

¹ For the founding of Megalopolis see chap. 72.4.

² Athanas (Athanis in Plutarch and Athenaeus 3.98d, who entitles his history Sikelika) seems to have played an outstanding political role in Syracuse during Dion's time (Theopompus, fr. 212 M or 184 Oxford). The first book of his work handled the last seven years of the younger Dionysius from 363, where Philistus ended (see chap. 89.3), to Dion's return in 357. Then the presentation was more detailed and developed in twelve books to the death of Timoleon (FHG, 2.82.3). His influence is seen in Plut. Timoleon 23.4, 37.6. See Christ-Schmidt (6), Gr. Litt. 526.

This text is based on the following book(s):
Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.
OCLC: 24758311
ISBN: 0674994132, 0674994221, 0674994396, 0674994280, 0674994647

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