The Ancient Greek Author Who Revolutionized Writing and History

AI depiction of Hellanicus of Lesbos. Credit: DALLE for the Greek Reporter Hellanicus of Lesbos was born around 480 BC on the Greek island of Lesbos. He was one of the earliest and most prolific Greek logographers of the 5th century BC, paving the way for some of the great writers who came after him. Unfortunately, his contribution to the seminal parts of Greek writing is relatively unknown. Not many people even know of his existence. Hellanicus lived for some time at the court of a Macedonian king in Northern Greece as well as in Athens . However, he passed away around 395 BC in Perperene, Asia Minor, an ancient Greek city in modern-day Western Turkey. A prolific Greek writer with a wide range of works Hellanicus might not have attained the reputation some of his later colleagues enjoyed. Nonetheless, he was a remarkably productive author. With around thirty works attributed to him, he pioneered and innovated, shaping the future world of prose in ancient Greece. Unfortunately, only fragments of these works survive today. Nonetheless, they are still enough for us to understand his style and appreciate his talent. What really set Hellanicus apart from other logographers who lived and flourished before him was his unique attempt to record a series of local traditions and myths from across Greece as they were actually remembered by the people who lived there. This differed from the prevailing practice of simply repeating the commonly accepted versions of poets. In addition to his most famous work Atthis , which was a local history of the broader region of Athens known as Attica, Hellanicus wrote a number of monographs on many other parts of the Greek and Middle Eastern world. His fascinating work on genealogies and historical lists in particular helped later scholars to establish a common chronology for Greek history, a tool that was undoubtedly important. The Atthis and its influence on the ancient Greek world Some people argue that perhaps the most significant work of Hellanicus was his Atthis . It is actually the very first known history of Attica and its […]

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