The Historical Library of Diodorus of Sicily, from Agyrium, is a universal history in forty books, written in Greek between about 60 and 30 BCE. Diodorus set out to gather the history of Greeks and non-Greeks into one work, from the myths down to 60 BCE, built from earlier historians now mostly lost. The text runs to Book XX; the fragments of Books XXI to XL are not included.
The first books cover the time before the Trojan War: Egypt in Book I, the Assyrians, India, Scythia and Arabia in Book II, Ethiopia and Libya in Book III, Greek myth in Book IV, and the islands and the peoples of the west in Book V. Books VI to X run from the gods and heroes down towards the Persian Wars. From Book XI, which opens with Xerxes' invasion in 480 BCE, the narrative goes year by year under the Athenian archons and the Roman consuls, with Sicily beside Greece and Persia, through Philip II in Book XVI and Alexander in Book XVII. Books XVIII to XX follow the wars of Alexander's successors and of Agathocles, and stop in 302 BCE, before the battle of Ipsus.
Books I to V and XI to XX survive whole. Books VI to X are known only from Byzantine excerpts and from quotations in later writers.
Diodorus of Sicily Historical Library: summary and contents (PDF)
Diodorus of Sicily Historical Library: summary and contents (Markdown)
Contents
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Αʹ Book I
Egypt fills the first book of Diodorus's history, after a proem on the uses of universal history. He reports what the Egyptians say of the origin of the world, their gods and the earliest human life, the Nile and the causes of its flooding, the early kings and the pyramids, the laws and courts, the sacred animals and burial customs, and the Greeks who studied in Egypt, closing on how Egyptian sculptors work to fixed proportions.
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Βʹ Book II
Asia under the Assyrians is the subject of Book 2: Ninus, the rise of Semiramis, her building of Babylon and its hanging garden, and her campaigns into Egypt, Ethiopia and India, down to Sardanapalus, who loses the empire to Arbaces the Mede. Diodorus then describes the Chaldaeans and their astronomy, the Median kings, India, the Scythians, Amazons and Hyperboreans, Arabia, and ends with Iambulus's voyage to an island in the southern ocean.
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Γʹ Book III
Diodorus turns south and west in Book 3: the Ethiopians beyond Egypt and their antiquities, the gold mines on Egypt's frontier and how the gold is worked, and the peoples of the coast along the Arabian Gulf and the ocean as far as India. The Libyan stories follow, of the Gorgons, the Amazons, Ammon and Atlas, and the myths of Nysa, the Titans and Dionysus, ending on the argument that there were several men named Dionysus and Heracles.
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Δʹ Book IV
Greek myth begins with Book 4, which opens on the difficulty of writing about the remote past. Diodorus tells of Dionysus, Priapus, Hermaphroditus and the Muses, then Heracles' labours and deification, the Argonauts and Medea, Theseus, the Seven against Thebes and the Epigoni, the Lapiths and Centaurs, Asclepius, Pelops and Niobe, Daedalus and Minos, and closes with Orion, quoting Homer's lines on him in the underworld.
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Εʹ Book V
The islands are the matter of Book 5, beginning with Sicily, its myths and the gift of grain by Demeter and Kore. From there the survey moves to the Aeolian islands, Malta, Corsica, Sardinia and the Balearics, to Britain and the amber island, the peoples of Gaul, Iberia, Liguria and Etruria, Hiera and Panchaea in the southern ocean, and then Samothrace, Rhodes, Crete and the Aegean islands down to the Carian and Greek settlement of the Cyclades.
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Ϛʹ Book VI
Only fragments survive of Book 6, quoted by later writers. The longest gives Diodorus's account of the two kinds of gods, the eternal heavenly bodies and mortals honoured for their benefits, and of Euhemerus's voyage to the island of Panchaea. Others tell of Picus called Zeus, buried in Crete, the Dioscuri, Admetus and Alcestis, Melampus, and Bellerophon sent to Lycia with the letter that asked for his death.
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Ζʹ Book VII
Book 7 survives in excerpts and citations covering the generations after the Trojan War. They place Orpheus, Heracles and Homer in time, and tell how Aegialeia turned against Diomedes and drove him from Argos, how Aeneas carried his father out of Troy, of the Bacchiads at Corinth and Malacus, tyrant of Cyme, and of the oracles given to Lycurgus and to Perdiccas, with the descent of Caranus from Heracles.
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Ηʹ Book VIII
Fragments of Book 8 reach from the eighth century into the sixth: the Eleans consecrated to the god and kept from war, Numitor recovering Remus and Romulus and the killing of Amulius, the Delphic oracle to Sparta in the war with Messene, and Numa said to have been a pupil of Pythagoras. They end with the Locrians, sent the Tyndaridae as allies by Sparta against Croton.
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Θʹ Book IX
Solon dominates the surviving excerpts of Book 9: his learning and laws, his meeting with Croesus over who is happiest, and his elegiac warnings against the tyranny of Pisistratus, whom he defies by trusting in his old age. Cyrus's accession in the fifty-fifth Olympiad is dated, and the book closes with anecdotes of Pisistratus's mildness, including the Hymettus farmer whose answer won his land freedom from tax.
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Ιʹ Book X
Tarquin's murder of Servius Tullius, thrown down the steps of the senate house and killed as he limps away, heads the surviving excerpts of Book 10, from the late sixth and early fifth centuries. They turn to Pythagoras, his teaching and way of life, the endurance of Aristogeiton under torture, and Zeno of Elea, who would not betray his fellow conspirators to the tyrant Nearchus. Later writers' citations close it, on Sicels and Sicans, Naples and the Alps.
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ΙΑʹ Book XI
In 480 BCE Xerxes crosses into Europe, and Book 11 follows the war through Thermopylae, Salamis and Plataea, alongside Gelon's victory over the Carthaginians in Sicily. The years after bring Themistocles' building of the Piraeus and his flight to Persia, the treason of Pausanias, the earthquake in Laconia and the helot revolt, the fall of Gelon's dynasty at Syracuse, and Ducetius the Sicel, spared as a suppliant and sent to Corinth.
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ΙΒʹ Book XII
From Cimon's last expedition to Cyprus to the eve of the Sicilian expedition, Book 12 covers the Athenian empire at its height and the Peloponnesian War. The foundation of Thurii and the lawgivers Charondas and Zaleucus have their place, with Meton's nineteen-year cycle, the plague at Athens, and Pericles fined and then re-elected before his death; the book closes as Alcibiades persuades the Athenians to send their fleet to Sicily.
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ΙΓʹ Book XIII
The Athenian expedition against Syracuse fills the first part of Book 13, from the fleet's sailing and the recall of Alcibiades to the battles in the Great Harbour, the retreat and the debate on the prisoners. The book then follows the last years of the Peloponnesian War and the Carthaginian invasion of Sicily, with the sack of Selinus, and ends with Carthage's treaty with Dionysius and the plague that followed the army home to Libya.
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ΙΔʹ Book XIV
Book 14 begins as the Thirty take power after the fall of Athens and Dionysius secures his hold on Syracuse. Cyrus's march against his brother, Spartan campaigns in Asia and the death of Socrates follow, then Dionysius's war with Carthage: his new artillery, the siege of Motya and Himilcon's invasion. The book closes with the peace made with Artaxerxes and the Gauls' attack on Rome, noting where Callisthenes began his history.
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ΙΕʹ Book XV
Sparta's hegemony and its collapse run through Book 15, from the Persian war against Evagoras in Cyprus and the seizure of the Cadmea to the Theban victory at Leuctra. Dionysius's poems, Iphicrates' reforms, the earthquake and flood that destroyed Helice and Bura, Jason of Pherae and the founding of Messene are also told, and the book ends on Chares' misconduct at Corcyra just before Philip's accession.
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ΙϚʹ Book XVI
Philip II's reign, from his accession and the defeat of Argaeus to his murder, is the frame of Book 16. Around it are set Dion's expulsion of Dionysius the Younger from Syracuse, the Social War, and the Sacred War begun by Philomelus's seizure of Delphi and carried on by Onomarchus. Events in Caria, Cyprus and Rome are entered by year, and the book closes on Philip's character.
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ΙΖʹ Book XVII
Alexander's reign takes the whole of Book 17, which its own table divides in two. The first part runs from the destruction of Thebes through the Granicus, Issus, Tyre and Egypt to the victory at Gaugamela, whose scythed chariots Diodorus describes; the second covers Persepolis, the death of Darius, the far east and India. It closes with the rumour that Alexander was poisoned, and Sisygambis starving herself after his death.
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ΙΗʹ Book XVIII
The quarrels of Alexander's generals begin in Book 18: the mutiny at Babylon, Perdiccas's regency and the division of the satrapies, with a survey of Asia. The Lamian War follows, from Leosthenes' victory and funeral oration to Antipater's settlement of Athens, then Perdiccas's failure on the Nile and his murder, Eumenes' campaigns, and the rivalry of Polyperchon and Cassander, stopping before Agathocles becomes tyrant of Syracuse.
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ΙΘʹ Book XIX
Book 19 begins with how Agathocles became tyrant of Syracuse, and sets it beside the wars of the successors in Asia and Macedonia. Olympias returns and kills Philip Arrhidaeus and Eurydice before Cassander besieges and executes her; Eumenes and the Silver Shields fight Antigonus at Paraetacene and Gabiene, and the Silver Shields hand Eumenes over to him to be killed. Cassander refounds Thebes, and the book ends as Agathocles, defeated in Sicily, resolves to carry the war to Libya.
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Κʹ Book XX
War in Libya runs through Book 20, as Agathocles defeats the Carthaginians, murders Ophellas of Cyrene, whom he had called in as an ally, and storms Utica, while at Carthage Bomilcar's bid for tyranny fails. Among the successors, Polyperchon has Heracles son of Barsine killed, Cleopatra is murdered at Sardis and Demetrius besieges Rhodes, and Rome's Samnite wars and Appius Claudius's censorship are noted. It closes with Seleucus wintering in Cappadocia and the kings gathering for a decisive battle.