Dr. Roel Konijnendijk

They're very helpful.

I mean, both because any source can tell you something more, even just about the kind of traditions that used to survive.

Plutarch has access to a lot of sources that we don't have anymore.

And he quotes them and he talks about them, compares them.

He also writes about topics that other sources or Xenophon perhaps might not be so interested in.

So he gives all these biographies, you know, you get all these glimpses of other parts of the Greek world and even beyond that.

Yeah.

And Diodorus obviously preserves this continuous history.

I mean, he was trying to write a universal history.

Most of it is lost, but there is a significant chunk, especially the fourth century, that's preserved entire.

So you actually rely on him.

Once Xenophon's narrative ends in 362, you have Diodorus, and otherwise you would have very little at all.

But I also want to mention a couple of other sources that become very prominent in the fourth century, especially the orators, because in the fifth you have just the first beginning of that.

in the fourth century, the Athenian orators, these writers who write essentially speeches to the assembly, speeches to the council and speeches in courts, and they become a hugely important additional source.

They're obviously hugely problematic in all sorts of ways, but they actually give us a whole extra layer and often they refer to and appeal to and organise in some ways historical events as well.

Justin is precious because he is summarizing a lost Philippic, right?

So there was a whole tradition of people writing histories of Philip of Macedon.

They're all lost.

And we have the summary of Diodorus and we have the summaries of Justin.

And so we do need them both in order to get something like a story.