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Tiresias: The Ancient Mediterranean Religions Source Database



4471
Diodorus Siculus, Historical Library, 1.9.3


nan Again, with respect to the antiquity of the human race, not only do Greeks put forth their claims but many of the barbarians as well, all holding that it is they who were autochthonous and the first of all men to discover the things which are of use in life, and that it was the events in their own history which were the earliest to have been held worthy of record.


Intertexts (texts cited often on the same page as the searched text):

3 results
1. Herodotus, Histories, 4.197 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)

4.197. These are all the Libyans whom we can name, and the majority of their kings cared nothing for the king of the Medes at the time of which I write, nor do they care for him now. ,I have this much further to say of this country: four nations and no more, as far as we know, inhabit it, two of which are aboriginal and two not; the Libyans in the north and the Ethiopians in the south of Libya are aboriginal; the Phoenicians and Greeks are later settlers.
2. Diodorus Siculus, Historical Library, 1.14.1, 1.15.8, 3.2.1, 4.1.6, 4.2.5 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)

1.14.1.  Osiris was the first, they record, to make mankind give up cannibalism; for after Isis had discovered the fruit of both wheat and barley which grew wild over the land along with the other plants but was still unknown to man, and Osiris had also devised the cultivation of these fruits, all men were glad to change their food, both because of the pleasing nature of the newly-discovered grains and because it seemed to their advantage to refrain from their butchery of one another. 1.15.8.  And the discovery of the vine, they say, was made by him near Nysa, and that, having further devised the proper treatment of its fruit, he was the first to drink wine and taught mankind at large the culture of the vine and the use of wine, as well as the way to harvest the grape and to store wine. 3.2.1.  Now the Ethiopians, as historians relate, were the first of all men and the proofs of this statement, they say, are manifest. For that they did not come into their land as immigrants from abroad but were natives of it and so justly bear the name of "autochthones" is, they maintain, conceded by practically all men; furthermore, that those who dwell beneath the noon-day sun were, in all likelihood, the first to be generated by the earth, is clear to all; since, inasmuch as it was the warmth of the sun which, at the generation of the universe, dried up the earth when it was still wet and impregnated it with life, it is reasonable to suppose that the region which was nearest the sun was the first to bring forth living creatures. 4.1.6.  And we shall begin with Dionysus because he not only belongs to a very ancient time but also conferred very great benefactions upon the race of men. We have stated in the previous Books that certain barbarian peoples claim for themselves the birthplace of this god. The Egyptians, for example, say that the god who among them bears the name Osiris is the one whom the Greeks call Dionysus. 4.2.5.  After he had received his rearing by the nymphs in Nysa, they say, he made the discovery of wine and taught mankind how to cultivate the vine. And as he visited the inhabited world almost in its entirety, he brought much land under cultivation and in return for this received most high honours at the hands of all men. He also discovered the drink made out of barley and called by some zythos, the bouquet of which is not much inferior to that of wine. The preparation of this drink he taught to those peoples whose country was unsuited to the cultivation of the vine.
3. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of The Philosophers, 1.23, 1.112, 2.1-2.2 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)

1.23. After engaging in politics he became a student of nature. According to some he left nothing in writing; for the Nautical Astronomy attributed to him is said to be by Phocus of Samos. Callimachus knows him as the discoverer of the Ursa Minor; for he says in his Iambics:Who first of men the course made plainof those small stars we call the Wain,Whereby Phoenicians sail the main.But according to others he wrote nothing but two treatises, one On the Solstice and one On the Equinox, regarding all other matters as incognizable. He seems by some accounts to have been the first to study astronomy, the first to predict eclipses of the sun and to fix the solstices; so Eudemus in his History of Astronomy. It was this which gained for him the admiration of Xenophanes and Herodotus and the notice of Heraclitus and Democritus. 1.112. He also compiled prose works On Sacrifices and the Cretan Constitution, also On Minos and Rhadamanthus, running to about 4000 lines. At Athens again he founded the sanctuary of the Solemn Gods (Semnai Theai), as Lobon of Argos tells us in his work On Poets. He is stated to have been the first who purified houses and fields, and the first who founded sanctuaries. Some are found to maintain that he did not go to sleep but withdrew himself for a while, engaged in gathering simples.There is extant a letter of his to Solon the lawgiver, containing a scheme of government which Minos drew up for the Cretans. But Demetrius of Magnesia, in his work on poets and writers of the same name, endeavours to discredit the letter on the ground that it is late and not written in the Cretan dialect but in Attic, and New Attic too. However, I have found another letter by him which runs as follows:Epimenides to Solon 2.1. BOOK 2: 1. ANAXIMANDERAnaximander, the son of Praxiades, was a native of Miletus. He laid down as his principle and element that which is unlimited without defining it as air or water or anything else. He held that the parts undergo change, but the whole is unchangeable; that the earth, which is of spherical shape, lies in the midst, occupying the place of a centre; that the moon, shining with borrowed light, derives its illumination from the sun; further, that the sun is as large as the earth and consists of the purest fire.He was the first inventor of the gnomon and set it up for a sundial in Lacedaemon, as is stated by Favorinus in his Miscellaneous History, in order to mark the solstices and the equinoxes; he also constructed clocks to tell the time. 2.2. He was the first to draw on a map the outline of land and sea, and he constructed a globe as well.His exposition of his doctrines took the form of a summary which no doubt came into the hands, among others, of Apollodorus of Athens. He says in his Chronology that in the second year of the 58th Olympiad Anaximander was sixty-four, and that he died not long afterwards. Thus he flourished almost at the same time as Polycrates the tyrant of Samos. There is a story that the boys laughed at his singing, and that, when he heard of it, he rejoined, Then to please the boys I must improve my singing.There is another Anaximander, also of Miletus, a historian who wrote in the Ionic dialect.


Subjects of this text:

subject book bibliographic info
abraham Lidonnici and Lieber, Heavenly Tablets: Interpretation, Identity and Tradition in Ancient Judaism (2007) 144
anaximander Lloyd, The Revolutions of Wisdom: Studies in the Claims and Practice of Ancient Greek Science (1989) 52
archimedes Lloyd, The Revolutions of Wisdom: Studies in the Claims and Practice of Ancient Greek Science (1989) 52
archytas Lloyd, The Revolutions of Wisdom: Studies in the Claims and Practice of Ancient Greek Science (1989) 52
artapanus Lidonnici and Lieber, Heavenly Tablets: Interpretation, Identity and Tradition in Ancient Judaism (2007) 144
athens/athenians Gruen, Ethnicity in the Ancient World - Did it matter (2020) 23
autochthony, of ethiopians and indians Isaac, The invention of racism in classical antiquity (2004) 135
autochthony, of the britons Isaac, The invention of racism in classical antiquity (2004) 135
babylonia Lidonnici and Lieber, Heavenly Tablets: Interpretation, Identity and Tradition in Ancient Judaism (2007) 144
babylonians Lloyd, The Revolutions of Wisdom: Studies in the Claims and Practice of Ancient Greek Science (1989) 52
barbarians/barbarity, as non-greeks Gruen, Ethnicity in the Ancient World - Did it matter (2020) 23
barbarians/barbarity, brutal and cruel behavior ascribed to Gruen, Ethnicity in the Ancient World - Did it matter (2020) 23
barbarians/barbarity, diodorus on Gruen, Ethnicity in the Ancient World - Did it matter (2020) 23
berossus Lidonnici and Lieber, Heavenly Tablets: Interpretation, Identity and Tradition in Ancient Judaism (2007) 144
britons, their origins Isaac, The invention of racism in classical antiquity (2004) 135
descent and lineage, roman views on Isaac, The invention of racism in classical antiquity (2004) 135
diodorus siculus, on autochthony Isaac, The invention of racism in classical antiquity (2004) 135
diodorus siculus Gruen, Ethnicity in the Ancient World - Did it matter (2020) 23; Lidonnici and Lieber, Heavenly Tablets: Interpretation, Identity and Tradition in Ancient Judaism (2007) 144
diogenes laertius Lloyd, The Revolutions of Wisdom: Studies in the Claims and Practice of Ancient Greek Science (1989) 52
earth, people generated by Isaac, The invention of racism in classical antiquity (2004) 135
eclipse Lloyd, The Revolutions of Wisdom: Studies in the Claims and Practice of Ancient Greek Science (1989) 52
egypt Lidonnici and Lieber, Heavenly Tablets: Interpretation, Identity and Tradition in Ancient Judaism (2007) 144; Lloyd, The Revolutions of Wisdom: Studies in the Claims and Practice of Ancient Greek Science (1989) 52
epimenides Lloyd, The Revolutions of Wisdom: Studies in the Claims and Practice of Ancient Greek Science (1989) 52
ethnography Gruen, Ethnicity in the Ancient World - Did it matter (2020) 23
finnegan, r. Lloyd, The Revolutions of Wisdom: Studies in the Claims and Practice of Ancient Greek Science (1989) 52
goody, j. Lloyd, The Revolutions of Wisdom: Studies in the Claims and Practice of Ancient Greek Science (1989) 52
greece Lidonnici and Lieber, Heavenly Tablets: Interpretation, Identity and Tradition in Ancient Judaism (2007) 144
greeks/hellenes, shared characteristics with barbarians Gruen, Ethnicity in the Ancient World - Did it matter (2020) 23
hellenism Lidonnici and Lieber, Heavenly Tablets: Interpretation, Identity and Tradition in Ancient Judaism (2007) 144
heroes Lidonnici and Lieber, Heavenly Tablets: Interpretation, Identity and Tradition in Ancient Judaism (2007) 144
historiography Lidonnici and Lieber, Heavenly Tablets: Interpretation, Identity and Tradition in Ancient Judaism (2007) 144
innate capacity as determining ethnicity, and barbarians Gruen, Ethnicity in the Ancient World - Did it matter (2020) 23
innate capacity as determining ethnicity, doubted by diodorus Gruen, Ethnicity in the Ancient World - Did it matter (2020) 23
inventions Lloyd, The Revolutions of Wisdom: Studies in the Claims and Practice of Ancient Greek Science (1989) 52
jerusalem Lidonnici and Lieber, Heavenly Tablets: Interpretation, Identity and Tradition in Ancient Judaism (2007) 144
joseph Lidonnici and Lieber, Heavenly Tablets: Interpretation, Identity and Tradition in Ancient Judaism (2007) 144
jubilees Lidonnici and Lieber, Heavenly Tablets: Interpretation, Identity and Tradition in Ancient Judaism (2007) 144
language, secret Lidonnici and Lieber, Heavenly Tablets: Interpretation, Identity and Tradition in Ancient Judaism (2007) 144
literature Lidonnici and Lieber, Heavenly Tablets: Interpretation, Identity and Tradition in Ancient Judaism (2007) 144
mediterranean Gruen, Ethnicity in the Ancient World - Did it matter (2020) 23
moses Lidonnici and Lieber, Heavenly Tablets: Interpretation, Identity and Tradition in Ancient Judaism (2007) 144
orality Lloyd, The Revolutions of Wisdom: Studies in the Claims and Practice of Ancient Greek Science (1989) 52
phoenicia Lidonnici and Lieber, Heavenly Tablets: Interpretation, Identity and Tradition in Ancient Judaism (2007) 144
plato Bickerman and Tropper, Studies in Jewish and Christian History (2007) 621
pseudo-eupolemus Lidonnici and Lieber, Heavenly Tablets: Interpretation, Identity and Tradition in Ancient Judaism (2007) 144
purifications Lloyd, The Revolutions of Wisdom: Studies in the Claims and Practice of Ancient Greek Science (1989) 52
rome, ideally placed for universal rule, ideas about descent and lineage of its people Isaac, The invention of racism in classical antiquity (2004) 135
samaria Lidonnici and Lieber, Heavenly Tablets: Interpretation, Identity and Tradition in Ancient Judaism (2007) 144
science, chaldean' Lidonnici and Lieber, Heavenly Tablets: Interpretation, Identity and Tradition in Ancient Judaism (2007) 144
septuagint Bickerman and Tropper, Studies in Jewish and Christian History (2007) 621
thales Lloyd, The Revolutions of Wisdom: Studies in the Claims and Practice of Ancient Greek Science (1989) 52
tradition Lloyd, The Revolutions of Wisdom: Studies in the Claims and Practice of Ancient Greek Science (1989) 52