Moralising and Immersive Big Man History Diodorus’ Representation of Gelon, Dionysius I, and Agathocles

Abstract

This article analyses Diodorus’ accounts of the Sicilian tyrants Gelon, Dionysius I, and Agathocles, on a stylistic and thematic basis. It argues that the significant differences between the three narratives are due partly to Sicilian social memory, partly to the differences between the sources used by Diodorus, and it offers some thoughts on the lost works of Timaeus of Tauromenium and Duris of Samos. However, in their present form, all three narratives are Diodoran: he chose to take them over from his sources in differing levels of detail, he kept the themes he wanted to keep and probably left out others, and he may well have added his own evaluative phrases and historiographical or moral-didactic comments. His Sicilian narrative is dominated by ‘big men’ in a way that his narrative of mainland Greece is not (apart from the Alexander narrative in book 17), and all three narratives are designed to show the importance and interest of Sicily, for the double purpose of pleasurable reading and moral improvement.