Hellanicos

Hellanicos (in Greek old Ἑλλανικός / Hellanikós ), known as also Hellanicos de Lesbos or Hellanicos de Mytilène , was a Greek Logographe. He lived at fifth century BC but the exact dates of its birth and its death are dubious (respectively around 480 and 395 av. J. - C.).

It was originating in Mytilène in the island of Lesbos. It would have lived at the court of the king of Macedonia, and would have died in Perpérène, small city of Asia Mineure probably localized opposite Lesbos in the gulf of current Edremit.

Hellanicos was a prolix author but only approximately two hundred fragments of its work reached us. Its writings are to be arranged in the fields of the Mythographie, of the Ethnographie as well as historical chronicles. Though it draws a certain number of its data in the Ionian historical tradition started with Hécatée de Milet, it presents a certain originality, in particular by its comprehension of the need for rigor necessary to the establishment of a rational history It will not always apply (for lack of material?) in its works its own recommendations. It will pose the stakes for its successors, in spite of their criticisms in his opposition, in particular Thucydide. It must be regarded as their equal at least for his major influence on the Greek Historiographie.

Its work as a mythographe, which thus ambitionnait “to humanize” the divine actions, was organized around five works: Asopis ( Άσωπις ), Atlantis ( Άτλαντιάς ), Deucalionea ( Δευχαλιωνεια ), Phoronis ( Φορωνίς ), Troica ( Τρωιχά ). Hellanicos collected disparate data and wanted chronologically to organize them in a unit cohérent.
Dans the Phoronis , it treats legends of the Pélasges and Argiens since the first man until the return of the Héraclides. In the Deucalionea , it is the first to bring back the legend of the foundation of Rome by Trojan the Enée.

Its ethnographic work relates to various areas of Greece: Thessalie ( Thessalika / Θεσσαλιχά ), Béotie ( Boiotika / Βοιωτιαχά ), Arcadie ( Perished Arkadias / περί Άρχαδιας ), Lesbos ( Lesbika / Λεσβιχά ), Etolie ( Aiolika / Αίολιχά ), Argolide ( Argolika / Άργολιχά ) and foreign people: Egypt ( Aigyptiaka / Αίγυπτιαχά ), Scythie ( Skythika / Σχυθιχά ), Persian ( Persika / Περσιχά ), Lydie ( Lydiaka / Λυδιαχά ). No matter what bulky, its geographical writings will have less repercussion because exceeded by those of its contemporary Hérodote.

Its work of historian was innovating because it was the first to draw up chronological lists real characters such as the priestesses of Héra with Argos ( Ίέρειαι ), of the winners of the Plays Carnéens ( Karneonikai / Καρνεοίχαι ) or of the Athenian archontes éponymes. These lists are as many fixed points which make it possible to establish a chronology common to the Greeks and are more effective than the traditional calculation by génération.
He wrote also a history of the Attique ( Atthis , Άτθίς ) which extends until the Peloponnesian War. Typical work of the defects and qualities of the style of Hellanicos or it distinguishes clearly what is mythological of what is historical, but at the side of “scientific” chronologies certain parts was organized in “genealogical” chronologies. Moreover work was not objective since it adopted the Athenian point of view. Thucydide criticized it but made use of it nevertheless.

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