Scillus and After

In this chapter I analyse the way in which Scillus comes to be characterised as the locale in which Xenophon wrote his own histories. Such an idea is unmentioned in the Anabasis. Already in Diogenes Laertius and Cassius Dio, however, we can see it as well entrenched. I argue that later writers are feeling their way towards a standard model for how a historian’s life should unfold. Scillus becomes important as a place of tranquillity in exile, where the historian has the opportunity to put his life-experience to good use. It is telling that, in creating this picture, Xenophon starts to blur into that other exiled Athenian historian, Thucydides. I conclude by demonstrating the enduring grip of this idea, by showing how Arnold Toynbee, in his A Study of History, artfully assimilates the exiles of the two men to each other

Classical Antiquity Studies · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History · Organic Chemistry Synthesis Methods · Philosophy