Rethinking Diodorus’ Library of History : Historiographical Theory and Praxis

The book offers a reassessment of Diodorus Siculus' historiographical principles and their application in the Bibliotheke Historike, approached through systematic analysis of the text rather than assumptions about its author as a passive compiler.

The book offers a reassessment of Diodorus Siculus' historiographical principles and their application in the Bibliotheke Historike, approached through systematic analysis of the text rather than assumptions about its author as a passive compiler. Readers will gain a rigorous re-evaluation of how Diodorus conceived, organised and executed his universal history, including its genre, programme, polemical method, use of speeches, structural principles, and moral framework. Rather than relying on presumptions about the author to explain the text, the book analyses the Bibliotheke on its own terms across five thematic chapters before synthesising the findings into a revised portrait of Diodorus as a historian. By uniting philological precision with interpretive moderation, this study aims to bridge a long-standing divide in scholarship between the two sides of the modern debate on the author. The book is intended for scholars and students of ancient Greek historiography, Hellenistic history, and classical studies, as well as for those working on ancient literature. It will also be of interest to historians who rely on the Bibliotheke Historike as a source of information or are concerned with the broader questions of how universal histories were conceived and written in the ancient world.