Greek Historiography

PSI Inv. 6 recto: a second-century CE papyrus fragment preserving the opening of Diodorus's Bibliotheca Historica (I.1.5–11) — among the earliest surviving manuscript witnesses to the work, almost certainly from the first column of the roll. LDAB 10472; MP³ 342.01.

Bibliotheca Historica

Reading companion for Diodorus Siculus's Bibliotheca Historica — the most ambitious universal history to survive from antiquity, the sole continuous Greek narrative of the wars of the Diadochi, and the largest single repository of lost Hellenistic historiography.

Nearly 2,300 years ago, a reader in provincial Egypt owned a copy of one of history's greatest works. This fragile papyrus preserves part of Thucydides' account of the Battle of Sphacteria — where a force of Spartan soldiers did the unthinkable and surrendered. Among the oldest manuscripts of Thucydides anywhere in the world, it bridges the ancient and modern transmission of a text that has never stopped being read. Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Book IV.36–41 · el-Hibeh, Egypt · Penn Museum, E 2747.

History of the Peloponnesian War

Reading companion for Thucydides's History of the Peloponnesian War — the foundational text of Western historiography.

Vat. gr. 124, f. 1r. Opening of Polybius, Histories Book I, with ornamental title panel (ΠΟΛΥΒΙΟΥ ΙΣΤΟΡΙΩΝ Α) and decorated initial. Constantinople, 10th century. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.

Histories

Reading companion for the Histories of Polybius, covering Rome's rise to Mediterranean dominance from the First Punic War to the destruction of Carthage.