ABSTRACT
This contribution provides a study of the rhetorical and literary techniques of Diodorus Siculus and the underlying biases of Hieronymus of Cardia, his main source for Book 18. This examination yields a comprehensive political and military re-analysis of the Lamian War and its chief belligerents, Antipater and Leosthenes. As court historians and poets competed during the Hellenistic period to win favour at the courts of the Diadochi, the Epigoni, and their successors, they sought not only to produce panegyrics to flatter these powerful kings but also to attack and polemicise their opponents. Thus, propaganda, in the form familiar to us today, emerged as an art form and reached new heights amidst the highly rancorous power-politics of the era. As Diodorus largely relied on Hieronymus of Cardia as his main source in Book 18, this should draw our attention to how the biases of Hieronymus - particularly against Antipater - may have entered Diodorus’ history. In writing a history that lauded the achievements of his patron and protector, Antigonus, and diminished the achievements of his benefactors’ rival, Antipater, Hieronymus’ own views, in addition to his use of Athenian sources, combined to produce the very unflattering image of Antipater in Diodorus’ account. Thus, as a work of propaganda, Hieronymus’s account has survived, in part, by transmission through Diodorus.
