Abstract

It has been customary to believe that apart from selection and abridgement Diodorus Siculus made little contribution to his Scholars have admitted the contribution of Diodorus himself when he refers to his native town Agyrium with some pride and to Sicily in general and when he occasionally records details of his own life. Beyond statements of this character, however, the tendency has been to assume that the origin of any particular statement is to be sought in the single source which Diodorus was currently using, or, as others would argue, in the major source supplemented by a subsidiary source, or, as Tarn would postulate for 17, the medley of sources used by the Sicilian historian. An examination of the attribution of one item in 17 may throw some light on Diodorus as an historian.