The Library, Books 16-20

by Diodorus Siculus

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Robin Waterfield’s translation brings together Books 16–20 of Diodorus Siculus’s Bibliotheca historica. Book 16 traces Philip II’s transformation of Macedon from a vulnerable kingdom into the dominant power of Greece, placing the Sacred War, the struggle for Greek alliances and the Battle of Chaeronea beside upheavals in Sicily. Book 17 follows Alexander the Great from his accession and invasion of the Achaemenid Empire through the Granicus, Issus, Tyre, Gaugamela, Persepolis, the campaigns in Central Asia and India, and his death at Babylon.

Books 18–20 preserve an exceptionally important account of the first generation of Successor conflicts. The settlement at Babylon, the Lamian War, the regencies of Perdiccas and Antipater, the campaigns of Eumenes and Antigonus, the struggles involving Olympias and Cassander, and the emergence of the Ptolemaic and other successor kingdoms unfold alongside Agathocles’s seizure of power at Syracuse and his extraordinary invasion of Carthaginian North Africa. The narrative reaches 302 BCE, including Demetrius’s siege of Rhodes and the coalition forming against Antigonus, while the edition’s introduction, maps, synopsis, explanatory notes and appendices clarify Diodorus’s sources and methods as a universal historian.

Historical periods

Rise of Macedon Alexander the Great Wars of Alexander the Great Wars of the Diadochi Carthage Achaemenid Persian Empire

Genres

Classical Literature Political History

Historical people

Alexander of Lyncestisc. 5th century BCE–331 BCE Alexander the Great357 BCE–324 BCE Darius III381 BCE–331 BCE Antipater398 BCE–320 BCE Olympias376 BCE–317 BCE Philip II of Macedonc. 382–336 BCE Hephaestion357 BCE–325 BCE Aristotle385 BCE–323 BCE Ptolemy I Soterc. 360s BCE–c. 280s BCE Bagoasc. 5th century BCE–c. 4th century BCE Roxana348 BCE–311 BCE Perdiccas366 BCE–322 BCE Philip III of Macedon360 BCE–318 BCE Eurydice II of Macedon337 BCE–318 BCE Cassander356 BCE–297 BCE Antigonus I Monophthalmus383 BCE–302 BCE Dion of Syracuse410 BCE–355 BCE Dionysius II of Syracuse398 BCE–344 BCE Parmenion401 BCE–330 BCE Demosthenes