Drafting the Bibliotheke. Diodorus Siculus’ Writing Process

Status Quaestionis

Over the years many scholars discussed the process of writing the Bibliotheke, focusing mostly on placing it in time and space. While we know that Diodorus was a native of the city of Agyrion in Sicily, he informs his readers that during the 30 years he spent on composing his work, he travelled to a “large portion of both Asia and Europe” (1.4.1). While some scholars doubted he really undertook such travels, or indeed any travel at all,^[2] it is now generally accepted that we can put him in Egypt during the 180th Olympiad, based on the information about the specific events he witnessed there (1.83.8) and his calculation of the length of the Macedonian rule (1.44.4).^[3] Diodorus’ own statement that he lived and worked in Rome (1.4.2), at least for some time, finds support in his remark about the rostra being removed from the front of the curia (12.26.1), which we know happened in 45.^[4] The latest piece of information we can find in the Bibliotheke comes from the year 36, when Octavian settled a Roman colony at Tauromenion (16.7.1), which gives us a terminus post quem for Diodorus’ death.^[5] These few tiny pieces of information constitute all the direct evidence we have about the author of the largest surviving piece of ancient Greek historiography, leaving modern scholars plenty of gaps to fill in an effort to fit Diodorus’ life and work into the turbulent age he lived in.^[6]

Currently most scholars accept the hypothesis that Diodorus initially intended to bring the Bibliotheke to the year 46 (as indicated by 1.5.1), but later changed his mind and decided to end it in the year 60/59 (1.4.7).^[7] It is also usually accepted that Diodorus spent some time – presumably roughly half of the 30-year period he mentioned – collecting materials for his work and started the writing sometime in the mid-40’s, possibly around the year 46.^[8] These reconstructions are based in large part on the passages discussing Caesar. Based on the fact that unlike 4.19.2, 5.21.2,^[9] 5.25.4 and 32.27.1–3, passage 3.38.2 does not refer to Caesar’s apotheosis in any way, scholars suggest that book III was completed at the latest in 43 BC, before the apotheosis, while the next books were written later on. With this in mind, scholars attempt to offer a timeframe for Diodorus’ writing process.^[10] Their propositions vary significantly, ranging from taking the beginning of the collection phase as far back as the year 75,^[11] to suggestions that Diodorus may have kept working until as late as 25.^[12] All these reconstructions share one common assumption that has not yet been put under closer scrutiny – namely that after completing the preliminary phase of collecting material, Diodorus started writing his work in a linear progression from the first to the last book, and that after this process was completed, he envisioned making some corrections.^[13] These he may or may not have finished.^[14] In the present study I will challenge this key assumption and present a case for a more complex process of writing.

Bringing the Beginning and End Together

The obvious place to start any attempt to reconstruct Diodorus’ writing process is an analysis of the two key passages from the opposite ends of the Bibliotheke – 1.4.6 and 40.8. Therefore, it may be useful to quote them here in full:

1.4.6:

Ἐπεὶ δ’ ἡ μὲν ὑπόθεσις ἔχει τέλος, αἱ βίβλοι δὲ μέχρι τοῦ νῦν ἀνέκδοτοι τυγχάνουσιν οὖσαι, βούλομαι βραχέα προδιορίσαι περὶ ὅλης τῆς πραγματείας. τῶν γὰρ βίβλων ἡμῖν ἓξ μὲν αἱ πρῶται περιέχουσι τὰς πρὸ τῶν Τρωικῶν πράξεις καὶ μυθολογίας, καὶ τούτων αἱ μὲν προηγούμεναι τρεῖς τὰς βαρβαρικάς, αἱ δ᾽ ἑξῆς σχεδὸν τὰς τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἀρχαιολογίας· ἐν δὲ ταῖς μετὰ ταύτας ἕνδεκα τὰς ἀπὸ τῶν Τρωικῶν κοινὰς πράξεις ἀναγεγράφαμεν ἕως τῆς Ἀλεξάνδρου τελευτῆς·

“Since my undertaking is now completed, although the volumes are as yet unpublished, I wish to present a brief preliminary outline of the work as a whole. Our first six Books embrace the events and legends previous to the Trojan War, the first three setting forth the antiquities of the barbarians, and the next three almost exclusively those of the Greeks; in the following eleven we have written a universal history of events from the Trojan War to the death of Alexander.”^[15]

40.8:

Ὅτι τῶν βίβλων τινὲς πρὸ τοῦ διορθωθῆναι καὶ τὴν ἀκριβῆ συντέλειαν λαβεῖν κλαπεῖσαι προεξεδόθησαν, οὔπω συνευαρεστουμένων ἡμῶν τῇ γραφῇ· ἃς ἡμεῖς ἀποποιούμεθα. ἵνα δὲ αὗται φανεραὶ γενόμεναι μὴ λυμαίνωνται τὴν ὅλην ἐπιβολὴν τῆς ἱστορίας, ἐκρίναμεν δεῖν τὸν ἐλέγχοντα λόγον τὴν ἄγνοιαν ἐκθέσθαι. ἐν τεσσαράκοντα γὰρ βίβλοις περιειληφότες τὴν πραγματείαν, ἐν μὲν ἓξ ταῖς πρώταις ἀνεγράψαμεν τὰς πρὸ τῶν Τρωικῶν πράξεις τε καὶ μυθολογίας, καὶ τοὺς χρόνους ἐν ταύταις ἐπ’ ἀκριβείας οὐ διωρισάμεθα διὰ τὸ μηδὲν παράπηγμα περὶ τούτων παρει[…]

“Some of the books were pirated and published before being corrected and before they had received the finishing touches, at a time when we were not yet fully satisfied with the work. These we disown. But in order that these books, by getting before the public, may not mar the general plan of our history, we have deemed it necessary to publish a statement that will expose any misconception. Our subject matter is contained in forty books, and in the first six we have recorded the events and legends prior to the Trojan War. In these we have not fixed the dates with any precision, since no chronological record of them was at hand […]”^[16]

While book 40 did not survive to our times, the available evidence strongly suggests that it indeed came to a close around the year 60/59 and certainly could not have covered the whole period down to 46.^[17] This would place passage 40.8 at the very end of the whole oeuvre, and possibly close to the declared terminal date, if not at the very end of the book.^[18] Moreover, Diodorus’ complaint against whoever published his books before they were “corrected and properly completed” finds a parallel in 1.5.2, where he states that he is presenting the outline of his work “to deter those who are accustomed to make their books by compilation, from mutilating works of which they are not the authors”.^[19] The explanation of why Diodorus did not organize his first six books in a chronological manner also mirrors his remark from the proem (1.5.1). These similarities strongly suggest that both passages represent not only the same general programme, but also the same stage of the project’s realization – even if they were not originally written at the same time, Diodorus probably consulted the parallel passage before writing the second one.^[20] I would suggest that studying them together is not only justified, but also beneficial for our understanding of the process.

There are two important observations we can make based on these passages. Firstly, they both underline how important the division of the Bibliotheke into books and the resulting structure were for Diodorus. Secondly, they both indicate that Diodorus intended at least two stages of work – 40.8 is much clearer, alluding not only to corrections, but also to proper completion (διορθωθῆναι καὶ τὴν ἀκριβῆ συντέλειαν).^[21] However, 1.4.6–7 seems to confirm it, since in itself it is clearly a later interpolation, presenting a set structure of the whole work, which could hardly have been offered at the very beginning of the writing process. It is quite plausible that passage 1.4.6–7 was written right after passage 40.8, the first moment when Diodorus was presumably able to present the final structure of his work.^[22]

The passage 1.4.6 in itself deserves a close attention due to a curious two-part opening statement. Diodorus states that since his ὑπόθεσις has been finished (ὑπόθεσις ἔχει τέλος), but since the books still “happen to be unpublished” (ἀνέκδοτοι τυγχάνουσιν οὖσαι), he will briefly define the limits of the work as a whole (βραχέα προδιορίσαι περὶ ὅλης τῆς πραγματείας). The scholars and translators (like Oldfather, cited above) usually consider this passage to be an indication that Diodorus’ work on the Bibliotheke was substantially finished, even if some minor corrections still remained to be made. Therefore, ὑπόθεσις and πραγματεία are usually regarded as referring to essentially the same thing – the complete work of Diodorus.^[23] However, ὑπόθεσις and πραγματεία have significantly different meanings. The noun πραγματεία is consistently used in the general proem to describe the literary work in general, either Diodorus’ own or the other authors’.^[24] On the other hand, ὑπόθεσις is most often used to describe proposals being considered by various collective bodies (e.g. 11.50.5–6; 13.92.6; 18.67.1).^[25] Still, out of the 25 occurrences of the term ὑπόθεσις in the Bibliotheke, almost a quarter is to be found in chapters 1.3–4 (1.3.1, 1.3.3, 1.3.5, 1.4.1, 1.4.2 and 1.4.6), i.e. precisely where Diodorus discusses how he intends to write his work. While in each case the term can be translated as “project”, the English word itself has a wide array of meanings and is not particularly helpful in understanding what precisely ὑπόθεσις meant for Diodorus. The common feature of all these occurrences seems to be that the ὑπόθεσις is always something proposed or projected, but not actually realized yet – much like the proposal for the assembly is not yet a law. This aspect is particularly clear in the passage 1.4.2, in which the phrase ὑποκειμένην ὑπόθεσιν (a “proposed study” or a “current project”) very clearly ties the term ὑπόθεσις with the conceptual phase of the process of writing.^[26] This observation is further substantiated by the very first occurrence outside of the general proem: in passage 1.6.1 Diodorus explains that he will not be dealing in detail with the stories about the gods, because “such a ὑπόθεσις would require a lengthy treatment” (τὴν ὑπόθεσιν ταύτην πολλοῦ λόγου προσδεῖσθαι). This case, which falls immediately after the general proem, clearly refers to a ὑπόθεσις that has been rejected by Diodorus, indicating yet again that the ὑπόθεσις and the complete work are two very distinct things.^[27] In essence, in passage 1.4.6 Diodorus leaves his readers with a curious statement about finishing something that is by definition provisional.

The next part of the very first sentence of the passage 1.4.6 offers the second intriguing piece of information: that “the books happen to be still unpublished” (αἱ βίβλοι δὲ μέχρι τοῦ νῦν ἀνέκδοτοι τυγχάνουσιν οὖσαι). The use of the verb τυγχάνουσιν seems to suggest that the books are indeed ready (or almost ready) for publication, and it is only by chance that they have not yet been published. Therefore, this sentence could be perceived as a supporting argument for the completion of the entire Bibliotheke, although P. Green was right to observe that Diodorus’ failure to remove this information indicated that the corrections of the Bibliotheke had not been completed.^[28] However, some crucial questions remain to be answered: what is the role of this information in the proem? why would Diodorus – or any author for that matter – feel it necessary to inform his readers that the work that he was writing was still unpublished?

It seems very unlikely that any author would need to keep such a note for himself under any circumstances, even more so if he was in fact starting the process of final corrections. Had Diodorus’ oeuvre been substantially ready, why would he have introduced a piece of information that he would have had to remember to remove before ending the work? Even if the “corrections” meant also reorganizing his material and reconciling some notes from alternative sources, as Green suggests,^[29] there is no apparent reason to introduce such information.

The key answer to this conundrum seems to lie in fragment 40.8, which as we have seen exhibits close similarities to chapters 1.4.6–5.2. In fragment 40.8 Diodorus informs his readers about some of his books being pirated and published before being completed. This is the kind of information that one would expect to be given before finishing Diodorus’ lengthy lecture, especially since the writer clearly wanted to renounce the authorship of the pirated books. Reassuring his readers at the very beginning that the version they have is actually the original would have been very appropriate. Moreover, passage 1.4.6 and fragment 40.8 both introduce the general outline of the structure of the Bibliotheke, including the division into books. In 40.8 Diodorus explicitly states that the purpose of this outline is “to prevent the books that have appeared from damaging the reputation of the entire History”. In the general proem the organizational outline is followed by the chronological one, according to Diodorus “to deter those who are accustomed to make their books by compilation, from mutilating works of which they are not the authors” (1.5.2). Both passages indicate that Diodorus trusted that presenting the organization of the Bibliotheke somehow helped protect it against such a danger.^[30] Therefore, I believe it is no coincidence that the information about his books being unpublished in 1.4.6 immediately precedes the presentation of his organizational scheme. It would seem that Diodorus put this information in his general proem to draw a clear line between the books he authorized and the ones that had been pirated, and not to inform his readers, for whatever reason, that he was almost done writing.

As we can see, a closer inspection of Diodorus’ proem and fragment 40.8 opens up a trove of new questions and possibilities regarding the process of writing. How extensive corrections did Diodorus consider when writing passage 40.8? What exactly was the ὑπόθεσις which was completed according to 1.4.6? To get closer to answering these questions, we need to first answer yet another one: at what stage of the writing process were these passages written? Before we do that, however, we need to take a look at what the writing process of the ancient authors looked like in general and what can it tell us about the writing of the Bibliotheke.

The Process of Writing in Antiquity

The ancient authors’ methods of work have been recently studied by Dorandi and Pecere^[31]. While the writing process of individual authors may have varied, especially across the ages, the available evidence does allow for some general observations about the organization of the creative process from the conception of the work to its final publication (or lack thereof). Dorandi distinguishes three main phases of the writing process: 1) reading sources, collecting notes, and preparing the drafts of the work (παρασκευαί, ὑποτυπώσεις, ὑπομνήματα);^[32] 2) written redaction of the text (for the limited circulation among the author’s friends); 3) preparation of the final version for the proper publication (ἔκδοσις).^[33] The first phase, which is of particular interest for the scholars studying a work as reliant on earlier sources as the Bibliotheke inevitably was, still remains quite vague in this general scheme, bringing under the common headline very different stages of the writing process. Luckily, Dorandi offers a compelling interpretation of the process of writing of Philodemus of Gadara, the Epicurean philosopher roughly contemporary to Diodorus (ca. 110–35 BC), whose papyri have been found in the Villa of the Papyri in Heculaneum.

Dorandi analyzed the two versions of the Index Academicorum preserved in PHerc. 1021 and PHerc. 164, concluding that the previous is the draft while the latter represents the final work. Based on the study of the PHerc. 1021 and the testimonies on the writing process of the other authors, Dorandi suggested that during the period of research Philodemus indicated to his notarius which passages of the work he was reading he wanted copied, and later dictated the introduction and the linking sentences joining the excerpts together. All these elements were copied to the PHerc. 1021, which then Philodemus read again and corrected, introducing supplementary material and polishing the text. Only after this process has been completed, a final rendition of the text has been prepared for publication. It is worth noting that according to Dorandi’s analysis the draft represented by PHerc. 1021 was subsequently supplemented with secondary sources and various additions.^[34]

Diodorus’ Bibliotheke was a far larger endeavour, more akin to Pliny the Elder’s monumental Historia Naturalis than Philodemus’ Index Academicorum. Nevertheless, since both Philodemus and Pliny apparently followed the similar path in their process, it is reasonable to assume that Diodorus method was not substantially different. At the same time, the Bibliotheke presented its author with unique challenges, not only due to the vast scope of the work, but first and foremost due to the unifying organizational principle adopted for the majority of the work.

While working on the first six books, organized geographically, Diodorus may well followed the method described by Dorandi. Once he settled on the scope of each book, he may have started to compose each book much like Philodemus or Pliny composed their works. However, the decision to organize events of the entire world in a strictly chronological manner in the main part of the Bibliotheke (books 7–40) necessitated not only synchronization of the evens from the different geographical areas and different sources, but also the precise organization of material. This task becomes even more difficult if resulting books were to be of similar length.

Revision (διόρθωσις) was a very important stage of the preparation of the text for publication. The term is once again very broad.^[35] According to Dorandi, διόρθωσις may have been done by the writer himself, or with an aid of his friends. It may have included not only re-reading of the work and correcting the existing text, but also more prominent modifications, including necessary cuts and additions.^[36] How extensive was the διόρθωσις mentioned by Diodorus in 40.8 supposed to be? The phrase διορθωθῆναι καὶ τὴν ἀκριβῆ συντέλειαν indicates that it was much more than mere spell checking and that the “proper completion” of the books still remained to be done.

The last issue we need to address, and clearly one that was particularly important to Diodorus, is the practice of pirating the books. The practice itself was apparently very common, and there is no apparent reason why we should doubt either Diodorus’ assertion that some of his books have been pirated, or his determination to secure his authorship of the work.^[37] Providing a clear outline of the work at the beginning (1.4.6) and end (40.8) informed readers of the scope and general structure, directly expressing the intention of deterring compilators and securing the authorship of the full work.^[38] Perhaps also the practice of stating the starting point, the contents, and the end point of every historical book served similar purpose.

The Point of Division

Since it is clear that the passages 1.4.6 and 40.8 must have been written after the final structure of the Bibliotheke was established, the point of the division of the work into the individual books makes a natural terminus post quem. While it is impossible to pinpoint that moment exactly, let alone attribute any absolute date to it, I believe it possible to find the clues which will allow us to understand at what stage of work such a division was possible. In other words, we shall try to establish what information Diodorus must have had already to make the division, and what information he probably did not have had yet.

The first and important observation stems from the analysis of the passages 1.4.6 and 40.8 conducted above. Based on how much importance Diodorus attributed to presenting an accurate summary of the structure of his work as a means to disavow the pirated books, we may reasonably suspect that the final organizational structure of his work would manifestly set it apart from the previously circulating unauthorized drafts.^[39] This would mean that the pirated books did not reflect the same divisions, and consequently that the final structure of the Bibliotheke was established only after the unauthorized publication happened.^[40] At the same time, Diodorus statement in 40.8 mentions that only “some of the books” (τῶν βίβλων τινὲς) have been pirated, which indicates that the work (or the notes he collected for it) was already at this stage divided into books (or rolls), although in a different, preliminary fashion.

This leads us also to another important observation: while the pirated books or reflected a stage of work preceding the final division of the Bibliotheke into books, they apparently already represented some significant value, even if Diodorus himself was not yet satisfied with them. It would indicate that they were some form of the ὑπομνήματα, consisting of a significant amount of raw material and notes, intended to help Diodorus with making the final division of the Bibliotheke.

Dividing the Material into Books

There are a few aspects that we ought to take into account when discussing the division of the Bibliotheke into books: first, their actual length; second, the chronological span of each of the historical books, and the theme of each book; finally, the question whether Diodorus had a set number of books in mind as he set out to write his work, or if he arrived at 40 by coincidence. The latter problem has already been analysed to some extent by C. Rubincam.^[41] While her findings can be disputed, for our purpose this question is of a secondary nature. After all, regardless of the intended number of books, the internal divisions needed to be reasonable, especially since each book of the Bibliotheke was supposed to be not only a compositional unit, but also – we can quite safely assume – a single scroll.^[42]

There is an immediate issue concerning the division of the Bibliotheke into books: books 1 and 17 were divided into two parts each sometime during the transmission (see especially 1.42.1, which states that the division was made due to length – διὰ τὸ μέγεθος εἰς δύο βίβλους διῃρημένης). However, the divisions of these books do not necessarily have to be interpreted as Diodorus miscalculating the space he needed.^[43] While it is difficult to assess the length of ancient texts with any precision, M. Rathmann analysed the length of the books of the Bibliotheke by counting the lines of the Greek text in the modern Teubner edition.^[44] By his count, book 1 (4,435 lines) and book 17 (4,321 lines) rank third and fourth respectively, with both book 13 (4,522 lines) and book 14 (4,463 lines) being actually longer. Naturally, the differences among all four books are marginal (<5 %) and may be to some extent attributed to e.g. a different division of each book into chapters. However, it is undeniable that all these four books are of a comparable length. Since books 13 and 14 were not divided into parts, it stands to reason that the length of (roughly) 4,400 lines could be fitted into a single scroll. Therefore, the division of books 1 and 17 may have been more due to chance rather than to Diodorus’ poor organization of the material.^[45]

Rathmann’s analysis provides a useful insight into the relative length of the 15 surviving books of the Bibliotheke. As many as six of them exceed 4,000 lines (books 1, 13, 14, 17, 19, 20) and only three do not reach 3,000 lines (books 2, 12, 18). The shortest book (2) is about 40 % shorter than the longest one (13), while the mean length of a book is almost 3,650 lines. Although speculating about the reasons for these differences in individual books is (in most cases) beyond the scope of this article, it is worth making some general observations.

The surviving books of the historical part of the Bibliotheke have chronological spans ranging from 6 (book 18) to 35 (book 12) years. There is no correlation between the number of years covered within a book and its length. If anything, one could argue, counterintuitively, that some of the longer books deal with shorter periods of time.^[46] This suggests that Diodorus was more than aware that he needed to adjust the chronological span of individual book to the material he wished to contain in it. At the same time, despite the constraints of the annalistic system, he tried to ensure that each book had a meaningful point of departure and conclusion, and if possible, to maintain thematic unity. Diodorus himself declared that he envisioned book 16 as devoted to the times of the reign of Philip II of Macedon (16.1.1–3), while book 17 discussed the whole reign of his son, Alexander the Great (17.1.1–2). The same care can be seen also in other books: e.g. book 14, starting after the fall of Athens, is introduced with a proem discussing the inevitability of the judgement of the Truth upon the unjust: a theme connecting the rule of the thirty tyrants in Athens, the hegemony of the Spartans and the tyranny of Dionysius I (14.1–2).^[47]

As we can see, dividing his work into books was not a trivial matter. Diodorus had to decide which events he wished to include in his work, estimate the amount of material he had on these subjects, find a suitable closing point, and in the meantime keep each book within the length which could be fitted into a single scroll. At the same time, Diodorus was clearly preoccupied with the notions of “balance” and “conciseness” (συμμετρία and συντομία, see e.g. 1.41.10), which further complicated his decisions.^[48] To realize this kind of layout by just starting to write and plan only one or two books ahead would have required a great amount of discipline and imagination, and still would have been extremely difficult.

The size and complexity of Diodorus’ undertaking, as well as his chosen organizational principles, required precise planning on his part. Therefore it seems unlikely that the final division has been made very early during the writing process. Normally, we could conclude that Diodorus made his division on the basis of an extensive ὑπομνήματα, including the notes and material for most, if not all books. However, in case of the work as rigorously organized as Bibliotheke, these notes and materials had to be already elaborated into the single, chronological threat, combining the chronological authority and (at the very least) the main narrative source, possibly already supplemented with some additional material.^[49]

While these observations give us an idea about the minimal requirements needed for the division, it is still possible that the final division of the Bibliotheke was done only after the bulk of the work had been completed, with only minor corrections remaining to be done. In order to verify this possibility, it will be useful to take a closer look at Diodorus’ declarations concerning the contents of books 17–19.

Diodorus’ Unfulfilled Declarations

Diodorus not only divided his work into books himself, but also supplied at least some of the individual books with proems.^[50] Each surviving book also has the subject or the chronological span that it is supposed to cover stated explicitly at the beginning and then referred to at the end (e.g. 13.1.3 and 13.114.3).^[51] This information clearly had to be inserted after the final division into the books has been made. One could put forward a hypothesis that it was introduced at a stage when the work was almost complete and only minor adjustments remained. In this case, these remarks would constitute some part of these final corrections (διόρθωσις). However, such an interpretation does not seem likely, mainly because of the unfulfilled promises Diodorus made.

Within the surviving books of the Bibliotheke there are a number of promises to cover certain events or subjects elsewhere. While the vast majority of such references were indeed realized elsewhere in the work, some remained unfulfilled.^[52] These are usually interpreted as merely Diodorus’ errors, but sometimes it is suggested that he carried the references over from the source he was using. Three cross-references promising to cover the career of Caesar form a significant subcategory, as it has been suggested that they reflect Diodorus’ original intention to close the Bibliotheke in the year 46 rather than 60, and that Diodorus simply neglected to remove them after he decided to change the terminal date of his work.^[53] While such an explanation may be accepted for the cross-references found within the narrative, it would not be possible for the suspected later interpolations, such as Diodorus’ information on the contents of each book. And yet, we can find such unfulfilled promises concerning the inclusion of Sicilian material in books 17–18.

At the beginning of book 17 Diodorus states that his intention is to cover in this book the reign of Alexander and “contemporary events in the known parts of the world” (τὰ ἅμα τούτοις συντελεσθέντα ἐν τοῖς γνωριζομένοις μέρεσι τῆς οἰκουμένης, 17.1.2). However, no narrative of such events is to be found in this book. In effect, some scholars consider it a monograph on Alexander within the universal history.^[54] In book 18 itself, which is focused on the successors of Alexander the Great, we find no parallel promise to include also information about the rest of the world (see 18.1.6; 75.3). However, at the beginning of book 19 Diodorus claims that the Agathocles narrative will follow the events he has already related (19.1.9) and that the previous 18 books covered the history of the whole known world (ἐν τοῖς γνωριζομένοις μέρεσι τῆς οἰκουμένης, 19.1.10). These statements could be disregarded as mere generalizations, had they not been further supported by two instances where Diodorus explicitly refers to the events and figures from the history of Sicily and Southern Italy that he claims were covered by the previous book (19.3.3; 10.3).^[55] It is worth noting that both passages appear very close to the beginning of the book and Diodorus’ opening statement.

This evidence leaves us with quite a few questions. Was the decision to omit the Sicilian material in books 17–18 deliberate?^[56] Did Diodorus take the cross-references from his source and then forget to remove them before publication?^[57] Or did Diodorus plan to include this material in his narrative but then for some reason neglect to do so? From our perspective the focal issue is whether Diodorus’ statements represent the final stage of work, when his text was almost complete, or rather an earlier planning stage.

An argument for introducing these declarations in the final stage of an otherwise complete text requires us to accept an astounding level of incompetence and carelessness by Diodorus. Are we really to believe that despite checking the chronological span of each book and pinpointing the events that mark both its beginning and end, Diodorus introduced manifestly false claims? At best, it would suggest that having written these books a few years before, he simply forgot that he had yet to supplement them with the information concerning the history of other parts of the oikoumene.

At the same time, both unfulfilled references in 19.3.3 and 19.10.3 direct the reader explicitly to the previous book, which means that they had to be written after the division of the Bibliotheke into individual books. If we assume that the division was made after the work was all but complete, it would mean that twice more Diodorus ‘forgot’ what he did and what he did not write in the previous book. At this point he would have been adding corrections and cross-references inside the narrative in the individual books. Even if he did not go through the process of revisions chronologically, such negligence is difficult to accept – especially given that, by Rubincam’s count, as many as 90 % of cross-references in the Bibliotheke are either “fulfilled” or “probably fulfilled”.^[58]

It seems reasonably clear that the hypothesis posited at the beginning of this section, namely that the Bibliotheke was divided into books only after the main writing process had been completed, cannot stand. It would require us to attribute to Diodorus a few connected mistakes and cases of negligence, precisely in aspects in which he elsewhere proved (perhaps surprisingly) to be a highly reliable author.

While the analysis of Diodorus’ organizational principles and the structure of the Bibliotheke shows that the division into individual books was based not just on the extensive ὑπομνήματα, but on the ὑπομνήματα which has been already organized chronologically, in accordance with the organizational principles of the work, the analysis of the unfulfilled cross-references indicates that the division was unlikely to have been made at the very end of the writing process. Now, with these observations in mind, we can try to answer the question how did the Diodorus’ writing process look like and how does it relate to the passages 1.4.6 and 40.8.

Reimagining Diodorus’ Writing Process

How can we reconstruct Diodorus’ process of writing based on these findings? One thing that seems to be fairly clear is that the linear approach, according to which Diodorus worked on the books one by one, in a chronological order which can be dated by e.g. references to Caesar, is tenuous at best. The summary of the entire work in 1.4.6–1.5.1 and 40.8 indicate that Diodorus did not plan to publish his work in sections – at least not until he had settled on its final organization. Once the division of the Bibliotheke into individual books has been made, there was no reason to maintain chronological order of writing.

Any attempt to write a work as extensive as the Bibliotheke had to be preceded by a period of extensive research – if only to select the primary sources for the narrative. In antiquity this process included creation of ὑπομνήματα, collections of notes and excerpts of the sources, tailored for the subject at hand. In case of the work of universal history in its extreme form this process of excerpting, selecting and binding together different sources was an immense undertaking in itself. Diodorus’ ὑπομνήματα, spanning over thousand of years and all the lands of the oikoumene, had to be a large collection of valuable material in itself. The first six books may have been planned beforehand, according to the geographical key.^[59] Whether the later books (7–40) were being organized chronologically already at the point of reading and excerpting sources, perhaps by immediately assigning excerpts to a particular date from Apollodorus work, or whether the collected material has been divided in appropriate years at a later stage, is unclear.

At this point, with the significant amount of notes organized chronologically, the overarching structure Bibliotheke started to emerge. Around this time, it seems, we ought to place the unauthorized publication of “some of the books”: putting the pirated drafts in circulation. Apparently the collected (and possibly reorganized chronologically) material was already considered valuable enough to be put to market. This clearly upset Diodorus, who expressed his concern that these books might damage his entire enterprise (40.8). Apparently that is when he decided to take measures to ensure that his authorized version will not be mistaken with the pirated one. The key to achieving this goal was a strict division of work into books, clearly stated at the beginning and the end of the work (1.4.6–1.5.1, 40.8), and supplying each book with information about the contents and the chronological span both at the beginning and at the end. This places the writing of the crucial passages 1.4.6 and 40.8 after creating a valuable, chronologically organized draft and defining the final division of the Bibliotheke into books.

But how far from completing his work was Diodorus at the time when he settled on the final division of the Bibliotheke? Was the work substantially ready for the final διόρθωσις? Both the phrase διορθωθῆναι καὶ τὴν ἀκριβῆ συντέλειαν (40.8) and the unfulfilled declarations concerning the inclusion of Sicilian and Italian material in books 17–18 seem to indicate that the division was not made during or after the final corrections, but rather when there still remained considerable work to be done, including addition of supplementary material (and possibly some necessary cuts to make the room for it).

This brings us back to the passage 1.4.6 and the mysterious ὑπόθεσις that has been finished. From the analysis above it is clear how important the establishing of the final division of the Bibliotheke was for Diodorus. We also know for a fact that the passages 1.4.6 and 40.8 have been written after this division. When we take a look at the sentence in question, Diodorus’ logic becomes clear:

“Since my ὑπόθεσις is now completed, although the volumes are as yet unpublished, I wish to present a brief preliminary outline of the work as a whole.”

It is the completion of the ὑπόθεσις, some time prior to publication of the books, that allows Diodorus to present the outline of the work as a whole. I believe the ὑπόθεσις in question refers not to the finished work, which as we have seen would stand in stark contrast with how this term is generally used, but rather to the well-advanced ὑπομνήματα, organized chronologically and delineating the final division of the material into the individual books. Naturally, the question arises: why Diodorus did not use a less conspicuous term, such as παρασκευαί, ὑπομνήματα, ὑποτυπώσεις? The first two terms appear in the Bibliotheke, but they carry different meanings^[60]. The term ὑποτυπώσεις does not appear in Diodorus’ work at all. It is possible that the technical vocabulary was less developed in the times of Diodorus. Perhaps he did not consider the term ὑπομνήματα suitable for a draft that has been given such an intricate organization? Whatever the case, I believe the available evidence points to the solution proposed above.

Conclusions

It is difficult to overstate the importance of the possibility that the Bibliotheke was divided into books based on the extensive ὑπομνήματα, after a period of extensive research and after organizing the material chronologically, but still at the point when substantial changes and additions still remained to be made. This does not just emphasize the amount of thought and planning that Diodorus put into his work, but completely changes how we view his work process. Once the material was divided into books, Diodorus was free to work on each book individually, in the order of his choosing. Sometimes this order still may have been chronological, but it may just as well have been dictated by the source he was reading at the time, his changing interests, or maybe even an attempt to circumvent a case of writer’s block.

The proposed interpretation of the passage 1.4.6 may also reopen a discussion about the state of completeness of Diodorus’ work. If the Bibliotheke we know lacked the “proper completion” (ἀκριβῆ συντέλειαν, 40.8) rather than Walton’s “finishing touches” or Dorandi’s “careful revision”,^[61] perhaps we ought to e.g. consider the possibility that Diodorus intended to fulfil his promises regarding the missing Sicilian material in books 17 and 18, but for some reason did not manage to do so. He may well have shared the misfortune of many other authors who never finished their works, whom he describes as having “their lives cut short by fate” (1.3.2).

At the end of the day, it is next to impossible to discuss with any degree of certainty the writing process of an author of whose work less than half survives, or to establish conclusively the state of completion of this work.^[62] That being said, I firmly believe that the interpretation laid out above fits the surviving material better than the previous attempts to reconstruct Diodorus’ writing process. On the one hand, it explains the otherwise surprising word choices and statements found in the general proem. On the other, it is congruent with what we can tell about the structure and organization of the work. In effect, it offers a new insight into Diodorus’ writing process and makes us reconsider some key assumptions concerning his work.