A Study Of The Hellenica Oxyrhynchia

The period from the end of the fifth century to the beginning of the fourth century is the important turning point of ancient Greek city-state civilization from its peak to decline. The western scholars always focus on it, while the sources on this period of history are rare and scattered. Besides some inscriptions and the fragmented writing of some known historian, the Library of History written by Diodorus left us some records pertinent to this period of history. Until the nineteenth century, in the history of western historiography, Xenophon was regarded as the authority of this period of history. While since the excavation of the papyrus fragments of the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia in Egypt, such opinion has changed greatly.The fruits of research on the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia are in abundance in current western academe. At the beginning, the western scholars just focus on the author and the constitution of Boeotia, while nowadays they are inclined to the study of its contents by subjects. In the domestic academe, there are few fruits of study into this subject, even though sometimes deals with it, to which is only easily referred. On the basis of translating the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia, I aim to compare it with Xenophon's and Diodorus' parallel records in order to discuss and found out the historical value of the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia. But I must point out here that because of the limitation of the materials available to me, this dissertation should be perfected in the future.My thesis is divided into three chapters: In the first chapter, I mainly present the excavations of Oxyrhynchus, the discovery of the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia, the author, the organization, the style and the vocabulary of the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia as well as the time of writing and the scope of the content.In the second chapter, I mainly analyze the war at Ephesus, Megara and Notium recorded in the Cairo Fragment and Florence Fragment and compare them with other historian's records.In the third chapter, I analyze the contents of London Fragment item by item and compare the parallel records with the other historian's. I mainly discuss the prosperity of Thebes and the fall of Athens in the Peloponnesian War, the constitution of Boeotia, the recovery of Athens after the Peloponnesian War, the consolidation of Spartan hegemony, the Corinthian War, the democratic revolution of Rhodes, the relationship between Persia and the Greek City States, the political conflict inside the Greek City States, etc.I come to the conclusion that the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia concentrated on the history of the time from the later part of the Peloponnesian War to the end of the Corinthian War, namely, from 411 B. C. to 386 B. C. As far as the words, the style and the organization of the content are concerned, the Oxyrhynchus Historian composed the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia in order to continue the history of Thucydides. The Oxyrhynchus Historian is good at writing in detail, impersonal judgment and impartial analysis. The Hellenica Oxyrhynchia compensates for or corrects the records of Xenophon, Diodorus and the other historian. Though the Oxyrhynchus Historian and Xenophon wrote about the contemporary Greek history, they represent different traditions. The reason for the divergence of Xenophon and the Oxyrhynchus Historian is due to the difference of their sources and interests rather than the political bias. In the view of historiography, the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia seems to be more reliable than Xenophon's Hellenica. Even though the Oxyrhynchus Historian hardly surpasses Thucydides, he seems to be superior to Xenophon. The Oxyrhynchus Historian and Diodorus have the similar records in many places, which show that Diodorus followed the historical tradition of the Oxyrhynchus Historian in some respects. The Hellenica Oxyrhynchia as the historical reference plays the important part in resurveying the value of Xenophon's and Diodorus' writing and unscrambling afresh the Greek history from the end of fifth century to the beginning of the fourth century.