What is spartan hegemony?

Victory in the Peloponnesian War made Sparta the master of Greece. It installed narrow oligarchies in defeated cities, including the Thirty Tyrants at Athens in 404 BC (overthrown, and democracy restored, by 403 BC), and it soon alienated former allies. The Corinthian War (395 to 387 BC) saw Thebes, Athens, Corinth and Argos, backed by Persian money, fight Sparta to a standstill; the war was closed by the King's Peace (the Peace of Antalcidas) of 387/386 BC, a settlement dictated by the Persian king that handed the Ionian Greek cities to Persia and imposed "autonomy" on the mainland, a clause Sparta then used to break up rival alliances and police Greece in its own interest.

What is theban hegemony?

Thebes, its democracy restored in 379/378 BC and its power growing, shattered the myth of Spartan invincibility. At Leuctra in 371 BC the Theban general Epaminondas, using a massed and oblique attack, destroyed the Spartan army and killed a Spartan king. Epaminondas then invaded the Peloponnese and struck at the root of Spartan power: in 370/369 BC he liberated Messenia, whose helots had fed the Spartan system for centuries, founded the city of Messene, and planted Megalopolis as a fortress against Sparta.

What is the rise of Macedon and Macedonian supremacy?

Into this exhausted, leaderless Greece stepped Macedon. Philip II, king from 359 BC, rebuilt the Macedonian army around the long pike (sarissa) and combined it with strong cavalry and siege-craft, then expanded steadily, taking Amphipolis (357 BC), intervening in the Third Sacred War, and winning a seat on the Amphictyonic Council that controlled Delphi. Despite the warnings of Demosthenes, the Greek states failed to combine effectively, and at Chaeronea in 338 BC Philip crushed a Theban and Athenian army.

Xenophon of Athens (c. 430 to 354 BC) is our only continuous eyewitness. His Hellenica deliberately picks up where Thucydides breaks off (411 BC) and runs to the battle of Mantinea (362 BC).

What is diodorus Siculus and the lost Ephorus?

Diodorus Siculus, a Sicilian Greek writing in the first century BC, composed a universal history, the Bibliotheca Historica (Library of History). Its fourth-century books (14 to 16) matter because they supply a continuous narrative that fills many of Xenophon's gaps, including Messene, Megalopolis and the growth of Macedon. Diodorus is a compiler, and for this period he drew heavily on the fourth-century historian Ephorus of Cyme, whose universal history is now lost; behind Ephorus in turn lies the fragmentary but high-quality Hellenica Oxyrhynchia, an anonymous continuator of Thucydides preserved on papyrus.

What are the Attic orators?

The great political speeches of fourth-century Athens are contemporary evidence of a different kind. Demosthenes attacked Macedon in his Philippics and Olynthiacs (350s and 340s BC) and defended his career in On the Crown (330 BC); Isocrates, a teacher and pamphleteer, called for pan-Hellenic unity against Persia in his Panegyricus (380 BC) and later urged Philip himself to lead that crusade in To Philip (346 BC); Aeschines, Demosthenes' great rival, argued for accommodation with Macedon. These speeches are priceless for the debates, mood and factions of the age, but they are persuasion, not report: each is crafted to win a vote or a verdict, so they exaggerate, select and smear, and must be read as evidence of argument and attitude rather than of fact.

What are aristotle, Plutarch and the inscriptions?

Aristotle (384 to 322 BC), himself connected to the Macedonian court, is contemporary and analytical: his Politics theorises constitutions and his Athenaion Politeia (Constitution of the Athenians) describes Athenian institutions, though neither is a narrative of events. Plutarch, writing biography in the second century AD, provides Lives of key figures of the period, Pelopidas, Agesilaus, Lysander, Demosthenes, and preserves much material from lost sources, but he wrote some five centuries later, and his aim is moral portraiture, not history. Finally, inscriptions, above all the surviving founding decree of the Second Athenian Confederacy (378/377 BC), give contemporary documentary evidence that can check the literary tradition at fixed points.

What is the problem of the tradition?

The core methodological problem is that the fourth century has no Thucydides. The one contemporary narrative is partisan and full of holes; the fullest continuous account is late and derivative; the richest contemporary voices are advocates; and the best-known biographies are centuries later. Whole strands, the Theban hegemony above all, have no friendly contemporary historian and must be reconstructed by triangulation.

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What was the shape of the Greek world from the fall of Athens in 404 BC to the death of Philip II in 336 BC, and what range of sources survives to reconstruct this age of shifting hegemonies?

Survey and sources for the Greek world from 404 BC to the death of Philip II in 336 BC, the shifting hegemonies of Sparta and then Thebes and the rise of Macedon, and the nature, range and limitations of the evidence, from Xenophon's participant but pro-Spartan Hellenica and the later, derivative narrative of Diodorus Siculus drawn from Ephorus, to the Attic orators Demosthenes, Isocrates and Aeschines, Aristotle, the much later Plutarch, and the inscriptions

A survey of the Greek world from the end of the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC to the death of Philip II in 336 BC, an age of shifting Spartan then Theban hegemony ending in Macedonian supremacy, and the patchy, partisan source tradition of Xenophon, Diodorus, the Attic orators, Aristotle and the far later Plutarch.

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Quick answer

The Greek world from 404 to 336 BC is the story of three hegemonies: Sparta, dominant after winning the Peloponnesian War and confirmed by the King's Peace of 387/386 BC; Thebes, which shattered Spartan power at Leuctra (371 BC), freed Messenia and briefly led Greece until Epaminondas fell at Mantinea (362 BC); and Macedon, whose king Philip II (from 359 BC) exploited Greek exhaustion and imposed supremacy at Chaeronea (338 BC) before his assassination in 336 BC. Writing this history means confronting a thin, uneven source tradition: the contemporary but pro-Spartan Hellenica of Xenophon, full of notorious omissions; the later, derivative narrative of Diodorus Siculus (drawn from the lost Ephorus); the partisan speeches of the orators Demosthenes, Isocrates and Aeschines; Aristotle and the inscriptions; and the far later Lives of Plutarch. Because there is no fourth-century Thucydides, historians such as Cawkwell, Buckler, Hornblower and Cartledge insist on triangulating these biased and incomplete sources against one another.

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What this dot point is asking

The opening strand of the Greece 404 to 336 BC period option asks you to do two things before you narrate a single battle. First, survey the age: the shape of the Greek world from the end of the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC to the death of Philip II in 336 BC, an era in which leadership passed from Sparta to Thebes and finally to Macedon. Second, and just as important, confront the evidence: the nature, range and limits of the sources for writing fourth-century Greek history. That means weighing Xenophon's contemporary but pro-Spartan Hellenica, the later and derivative narrative of Diodorus Siculus (drawn from the lost Ephorus), the political speeches of the Attic orators (Demosthenes, Isocrates, Aeschines), the analytical works of Aristotle, the much later biographies of Plutarch, and the inscriptions. The controlling problem, which every good period answer keeps in view, is that the fourth century is far more thinly and unevenly documented than the fifth, and its one continuous eyewitness is a partisan with large blind spots.

In plain English

Imagine trying to write the true story of a fifteen-year run of a football league in which the trophy changed hands three times, but the only full match-by-match diary you have was kept by a die-hard fan of the first champion, who quietly left out the games his team lost and never even mentioned the season the underdogs won it all. To fill those gaps you have a much later encyclopaedia that copied an older book now thrown away, a stack of fiery speeches from rival supporters clubs each trying to win an argument, and a celebrity gossip-columnist's profiles written five centuries afterwards. None of these is neutral, and none is complete. That is exactly the job here: the age when Sparta, then Thebes, then Macedon led Greece survives mainly through the biased diary of Xenophon, the second-hand narrative of Diodorus, the propaganda of the orators, and the late Lives of Plutarch. This dot point is the groundwork, what happened across the whole span, and how patchy and one-sided the evidence for it is.

The answer

The shape of the period: three hegemonies

The period runs from the fall of Athens in 404 BC to the assassination of Philip II in 336 BC, about seventy years, and its structure is a succession of leading powers.

Spartan hegemony (404 to 371 BC): Victory in the Peloponnesian War made Sparta the master of Greece. It installed narrow oligarchies in defeated cities, including the Thirty Tyrants at Athens in 404 BC (overthrown, and democracy restored, by 403 BC), and it soon alienated former allies. The Corinthian War (395 to 387 BC) saw Thebes, Athens, Corinth and Argos, backed by Persian money, fight Sparta to a standstill; the war was closed by the King's Peace (the Peace of Antalcidas) of 387/386 BC, a settlement dictated by the Persian king that handed the Ionian Greek cities to Persia and imposed "autonomy" on the mainland, a clause Sparta then used to break up rival alliances and police Greece in its own interest. Spartan high-handedness, above all the seizure of the Theban acropolis (the Cadmea) in 382 BC, provoked the reaction that undid it.
Theban hegemony (371 to 362 BC): Thebes, its democracy restored in 379/378 BC and its power growing, shattered the myth of Spartan invincibility. At Leuctra in 371 BC the Theban general Epaminondas, using a massed and oblique attack, destroyed the Spartan army and killed a Spartan king. Epaminondas then invaded the Peloponnese and struck at the root of Spartan power: in 370/369 BC he liberated Messenia, whose helots had fed the Spartan system for centuries, founded the city of Messene, and planted Megalopolis as a fortress against Sparta. Sparta never recovered. But Theban supremacy rested on two men: at Mantinea in 362 BC Thebes won the battle yet lost Epaminondas, and its leadership collapsed with him.
The rise of Macedon and Macedonian supremacy (359 to 336 BC): Into this exhausted, leaderless Greece stepped Macedon. Philip II, king from 359 BC, rebuilt the Macedonian army around the long pike (sarissa) and combined it with strong cavalry and siege-craft, then expanded steadily, taking Amphipolis (357 BC), intervening in the Third Sacred War, and winning a seat on the Amphictyonic Council that controlled Delphi. Despite the warnings of Demosthenes, the Greek states failed to combine effectively, and at Chaeronea in 338 BC Philip crushed a Theban and Athenian army. In 337 BC he organised the Greek states into the League of Corinth under his own leadership, with a war on Persia proclaimed; in 336 BC he was assassinated at Aegae, and his son Alexander inherited both the throne and the plan.

The nature and range of the sources

The evidence for the fourth century is thinner, later and more one-sided than for the fifth, and no single source is both contemporary and reliable across the whole span.

Xenophon (the contemporary narrative): Xenophon of Athens (c. 430 to 354 BC) is our only continuous eyewitness. His Hellenica deliberately picks up where Thucydides breaks off (411 BC) and runs to the battle of Mantinea (362 BC). Xenophon was a participant in the age he describes, he marched with the Ten Thousand (the subject of his Anabasis), was exiled from Athens, and was a close friend and admirer of the Spartan king Agesilaus, whom he also praised in a separate encomium. This makes the Hellenica invaluable as first-hand testimony, but deeply partisan: it is pro-Spartan and pro-Agesilaus, and it is notorious for its silences, omitting the foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy (378/377 BC), the liberation of Messene, the foundation of Megalopolis, and much of the achievement of Epaminondas and Pelopidas. His narrative also ends before Philip, so it does not cover the rise of Macedon at all.
Diodorus Siculus and the lost Ephorus: Diodorus Siculus, a Sicilian Greek writing in the first century BC, composed a universal history, the Bibliotheca Historica (Library of History). Its fourth-century books (14 to 16) matter because they supply a continuous narrative that fills many of Xenophon's gaps, including Messene, Megalopolis and the growth of Macedon. Diodorus is a compiler, and for this period he drew heavily on the fourth-century historian Ephorus of Cyme, whose universal history is now lost; behind Ephorus in turn lies the fragmentary but high-quality Hellenica Oxyrhynchia, an anonymous continuator of Thucydides preserved on papyrus. Diodorus is therefore essential as a corrective, but late, second-hand and chronologically muddled, and only as good as the lost sources beneath him.
The Attic orators: The great political speeches of fourth-century Athens are contemporary evidence of a different kind. Demosthenes attacked Macedon in his Philippics and Olynthiacs (350s and 340s BC) and defended his career in On the Crown (330 BC); Isocrates, a teacher and pamphleteer, called for pan-Hellenic unity against Persia in his Panegyricus (380 BC) and later urged Philip himself to lead that crusade in To Philip (346 BC); Aeschines, Demosthenes' great rival, argued for accommodation with Macedon. These speeches are priceless for the debates, mood and factions of the age, but they are persuasion, not report: each is crafted to win a vote or a verdict, so they exaggerate, select and smear, and must be read as evidence of argument and attitude rather than of fact.
Aristotle, Plutarch and the inscriptions: Aristotle (384 to 322 BC), himself connected to the Macedonian court, is contemporary and analytical: his Politics theorises constitutions and his Athenaion Politeia (Constitution of the Athenians) describes Athenian institutions, though neither is a narrative of events. Plutarch, writing biography in the second century AD, provides Lives of key figures of the period, Pelopidas, Agesilaus, Lysander, Demosthenes, and preserves much material from lost sources, but he wrote some five centuries later, and his aim is moral portraiture, not history. Finally, inscriptions, above all the surviving founding decree of the Second Athenian Confederacy (378/377 BC), give contemporary documentary evidence that can check the literary tradition at fixed points.
The problem of the tradition: The core methodological problem is that the fourth century has no Thucydides. The one contemporary narrative is partisan and full of holes; the fullest continuous account is late and derivative; the richest contemporary voices are advocates; and the best-known biographies are centuries later. Whole strands, the Theban hegemony above all, have no friendly contemporary historian and must be reconstructed by triangulation. Sound method means reading each source for its bias and purpose and setting the sources against one another and against the documents.

Historians and the evidence base

George Cawkwell, who introduced and translated Xenophon's Hellenica and wrote on Philip of Macedon, is sharply critical of Xenophon, arguing that his omissions and pro-Spartan slant make him a treacherous guide when used alone and that his silences must be filled from other sources.

John Buckler, author of The Theban Hegemony 371-362 BC, reconstructs the Theban ascendancy largely against Xenophon, using Diodorus, Plutarch and Pausanias to recover the achievement of Epaminondas that the contemporary narrative plays down.

Simon Hornblower, in his survey The Greek World 479-323 BC, treats the fourth century as comparatively source-poor and stresses the need to triangulate the partisan Xenophon against the derivative Diodorus, the orators and the inscriptions rather than trusting any one authority.

Paul Cartledge, who has written on both Sparta (Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta) and Thebes (Thebes: The Forgotten City), argues that the source tradition has unfairly eclipsed Thebes, whose brief hegemony is seen mostly through hostile or late eyes.

Ian Worthington and N. G. L. Hammond, historians of Macedon, reconstruct the rise of Philip II largely from Diodorus and the Attic orators read critically, since Xenophon's narrative ends before Macedon becomes central.

How to read a source on this topic

Section IV sources for this dot point typically describe (never reproduce verbatim) a passage of Xenophon or Diodorus, an extract in the style of an Attic orator such as Demosthenes or Isocrates, or a document such as the founding decree of the Second Athenian Confederacy. Three reading habits.

First, identify the source's type and date relative to the events: is it a contemporary narrative (Xenophon), a later derivative narrative (Diodorus, drawing on Ephorus), a contemporary speech (the orators), an analytical or documentary text (Aristotle, an inscription), or a much later biography (Plutarch)? Each carries different limits.

Second, fix WHO produced the source, WHEN, and FOR WHOM. A line of Xenophon is a partisan eyewitness writing for a Greek readership with a Spartan sympathy; a Philippic is an advocate trying to move the Athenian assembly; a passage of Plutarch is a moralist writing five centuries later. That single judgement usually decides reliability.

Third, always move from content to reliability to usefulness to perspective, and reach a judgement, rather than simply retelling what a source says.

Model exam responses

1. Source-analysis response (using a Hellenica-style passage). "A passage in the style of Xenophon's Hellenica, praising the discipline and piety of Agesilaus on campaign, is useful evidence for how a well-placed contemporary saw Spartan leadership, and for the values a friendly Greek writer admired in a Spartan king. Its usefulness is sharply limited by Xenophon's position: he was a personal friend and admirer of Agesilaus and wrote a separate encomium of him, so his account is partisan, and his Hellenica is known to omit Spartan failures and the achievements of Sparta's enemies. Read critically, the passage tells us more about Xenophon's pro-Spartan perspective than about Agesilaus' objective record, and it must be set against Diodorus and Plutarch, who preserve what Xenophon leaves out."

Marker's note: markers reward using the passage as evidence of perspective, splitting usefulness from limitation, and naming Xenophon's friendship with Agesilaus and his omissions rather than describing the source.

2. Essay paragraph (the source problem). "The defining feature of the fourth-century evidence is that its one contemporary narrative cannot be trusted whole. Xenophon's Hellenica is indispensable as eyewitness testimony, yet it is pro-Spartan and silent on the very events that ended Spartan power, the freeing of Messene, the foundation of Megalopolis, the building of the Second Athenian Confederacy. As Cawkwell argued, these omissions make Xenophon dangerous used alone, and as Buckler showed, the Theban hegemony has to be rebuilt from Diodorus, Plutarch and the documents. A defensible account therefore does not follow Xenophon's story; it sets his partisan narrative against the later, derivative Diodorus, the rival propaganda of the orators, and inscriptions such as the Confederacy decree, so that each source's bias becomes a tool rather than a trap."

Marker's note: this paragraph scores because it turns the bias and silences of the sources into part of the argument and uses named historians to build the case rather than to decorate it.

Command words and how to use a source

Outline/describe wants a small number of clearly separated points; explain wants a point, evidence and why it matters; assess/evaluate/to what extent wants a sustained argument reaching a supported judgement.

Using a source properly means four things every time: (1) content, what does it actually show or say; (2) reliability, who produced it, when and for what purpose; (3) usefulness, what specific question can it help answer, and how far; (4) perspective, whose viewpoint does it represent, and what does that leave out. For this period, the decisive first move is almost always to place a source on two axes: is it contemporary (Xenophon, the orators, Aristotle, inscriptions) or later (Diodorus, Plutarch); and is it narrative, rhetoric or document. Xenophon's pro-Spartan sympathy and his omissions, and the orators' persuasive purpose, are the two limitations markers most want to see named.

Weaving in historiography means using a named position as part of your argument, for example "as Cawkwell argues, Xenophon's silences force us to reconstruct the Theban hegemony from Diodorus and Plutarch," rather than dropping a historian's name in unconnected.

Common exam traps

Confusing the survey with a single episode: This dot point surveys the whole span, 404 to 336 BC, and the evidence base. Do not turn it into an essay on Leuctra or on Philip's reforms alone; those belong to their own dot points.
Taking Xenophon at face value: He is our only contemporary narrative, but he is pro-Spartan and omits major events; use him, but always as testimony to be evaluated and cross-checked, never as a complete record.
Treating Diodorus as an independent contemporary: Diodorus wrote in the first century BC and depends on the lost Ephorus; he fills gaps but is late, second-hand and chronologically unreliable, so his value rises and falls with his sources.
Reading the orators as history: Demosthenes, Isocrates and Aeschines wrote to persuade, not to report; their speeches are evidence of debate and attitude, and must be weighed as rhetoric, not quoted as fact.

Practice questions

Original practice questions graded from foundation to exam level, each with a full worked solution. Try them before revealing the solution.

foundation4 marksOutline the sequence of dominant powers (hegemonies) in the Greek world between 404 BC and 338 BC.

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A 4-mark "outline" wants the phases in order, each with a marker.

Spartan hegemony (404 to 371 BC): Victory in the Peloponnesian War left Sparta the leading power of Greece; its dominance was confirmed and policed through the King's Peace of 387/386 BC (1 mark).
The Theban interlude (371 to 362 BC): Thebes under Epaminondas smashed the Spartan army at Leuctra in 371 BC and broke Sparta's power permanently by freeing Messenia, holding a brief hegemony (1 mark).
A leaderless balance (362 to 359 BC): After Mantinea in 362 BC, where Epaminondas was killed, no single Greek state was strong enough to lead; Xenophon ends his history on exactly this note of confusion (1 mark).
Macedonian supremacy (from 359/338 BC): Philip II, king of Macedon from 359 BC, exploited this exhaustion and imposed Macedonian control over Greece at Chaeronea in 338 BC (1 mark).

Marker's note: markers reward the correct order Sparta - Thebes - (balance) - Macedon with a dated marker for each, not a vague list of city-states.

foundation3 marksOutline the range of ancient written sources available for Greek history from 404 to 336 BC.

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A 3-mark "outline" wants distinct source types with a word on each.

Xenophon: The Hellenica, a contemporary narrative by a participant that continues Thucydides down to the battle of Mantinea in 362 BC (1 mark).
Diodorus Siculus: The Bibliotheca Historica (Library of History), a much later universal history whose fourth-century books draw on the lost work of Ephorus and supply a continuous narrative (1 mark).
The Attic orators and Plutarch: The political speeches of Demosthenes, Isocrates and Aeschines as contemporary (if partisan) evidence for the age of Philip, and the far later Lives of Plutarch (second century AD), such as Pelopidas and Agesilaus (1 mark).

Marker's note: markers reward naming distinct authors and works, not writing only "the Greek historians."

foundation4 marksSource A: an owned reconstructed inscribed stone decree, in the style of the founding charter of the Second Athenian Confederacy, invites the Greek states to join Athens in a common alliance, promises that no member will have a garrison, a governor or tribute imposed on it, and declares the aim to be that the Greeks may be free and autonomous. Using Source A, describe what this type of source reveals about Greek politics in the 370s BC.

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A 4-mark "describe" needs a clear reading of the source plus supporting detail.

What the text shows: Source A shows Athens founding a new voluntary alliance and expressly promising members no garrisons, no imposed governors and no tribute, with the stated goal that the Greeks be "free and autonomous" (1 mark).
What it reveals: It reveals that "freedom and autonomy" had become the winning slogan of fourth-century inter-state politics, the same language the King's Peace of 387/386 BC had used, now turned by Athens against Spartan domination (1 mark).
The propaganda edge: The explicit promises are a direct answer to grievances about how Sparta and the old fifth-century Athenian empire had behaved, so the decree is as much advertisement as constitution (1 mark).
Supporting detail: The real founding decree of the Second Athenian Confederacy dates to 378/377 BC and survives as an inscription, which is why such documentary evidence can check the literary narrative (1 mark).

Marker's note: markers reward reading the decree as political advertising built on the "autonomy" slogan, and noting that inscriptions are documentary evidence, not neutral fact.

core6 marksExplain why Xenophon's Hellenica, though our only contemporary narrative of the period, is a problematic source for the historian.

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A 6-mark "explain" needs the reasons developed, not just listed.

It is partisan: Xenophon (c. 430 to 354 BC) was an Athenian who served with the Spartans, was exiled from Athens, and was a personal friend and admirer of the Spartan king Agesilaus. His Hellenica reflects this: it is warmly pro-Spartan and pro-Agesilaus, and its judgements follow his sympathies rather than a neutral standard (2 marks).
Its silences are as serious as its bias: Xenophon omits or barely mentions events that do not flatter Sparta or that he found distasteful. He passes over the foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy (378/377 BC), the liberation of Messenia and foundation of Messene, and the foundation of Megalopolis, and he plays down Epaminondas and Pelopidas, precisely the developments that ended Spartan power (2 marks).
The consequence for method: Because Xenophon is the only continuous contemporary account, these gaps distort the whole record unless corrected. The historian must read him as interested testimony and fill his silences from Diodorus, the orators, Plutarch and inscriptions, rather than following his narrative as if it were complete. As Cawkwell stressed, Xenophon's omissions make him a treacherous guide used alone (2 marks).

Marker's note: markers reward pairing the pro-Spartan bias with the notorious omissions, and turning both into a method of cross-checking rather than just naming them.

core6 marksSource B: an owned reconstructed speech extract, in the style of a Demosthenic Philippic delivered to the Athenian assembly, warns that while the citizens delay and debate, Philip of Macedon acts, seizes cities and buys traitors, and that Athens will lose everything unless it arms at once. Using Source B and your own knowledge, explain what the Attic orators reveal about the age of Philip, and one limitation of using them as evidence.

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A 6-mark "explain" needs use of the source, what the orators reveal, and a limitation.

Use of the source: Source B shows an orator urging immediate rearmament, casting Philip as a fast-moving aggressor who wins by bribery and Athenian complacency, and dramatising a crisis to move the assembly to act (2 marks).
What the orators reveal: The speeches of Demosthenes (the Philippics and Olynthiacs of the 350s and 340s BC), Isocrates (To Philip, 346 BC, urging Philip to lead a pan-Hellenic crusade against Persia) and Aeschines (arguing for accommodation) are contemporary, first-hand evidence for the debates, factions and mood of Athens as Macedon rose, and for the arguments Greeks actually made for and against resisting Philip (2 marks).
The limitation: These are persuasive courtroom and assembly speeches, not neutral reports. Their job is to win a vote or a verdict, so they exaggerate, smear opponents and select facts. Demosthenes' Philippics are anti-Macedonian propaganda; Aeschines answers with the opposite spin; each must be read for its rhetorical purpose, not taken as a factual account of Philip's aims (2 marks).

Marker's note: markers reward using the orators as evidence of debate and attitude while treating the speeches as interested rhetoric to be evaluated, not transcribed.

exam8 marksSource C: an owned reconstructed passage, in the style of a later compiler drawing on an earlier lost historian, gives a continuous year-by-year account of the wars after Leuctra, including the founding of Messene and Megalopolis that the contemporary narrative omits, but dates several events to the wrong archon year. Using Source C and your own knowledge, assess the usefulness and reliability of the later narrative tradition (Diodorus, drawing on Ephorus) for reconstructing the fourth century.

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An 8-mark "assess usefulness and reliability" needs content, usefulness, reliability and a judgement.

Content from the source: Source C is a continuous, year-by-year secondary narrative that covers events the contemporary account leaves out, but with confused chronology (2 marks).
Usefulness: Diodorus Siculus, writing in the first century BC, is invaluable precisely because he fills Xenophon's gaps. His fourth-century books (14 to 16) draw on the fourth-century universal historian Ephorus of Cyme, now lost, and so preserve a fuller narrative, including the liberation of Messenia, the foundation of Megalopolis and the growth of Macedon, that Xenophon omits or minimises. Without Diodorus, whole strands of the period would be almost invisible (2 marks).
Reliability and limitation: Reliability is uneven. Diodorus is a compiler working centuries after the events, at second hand through Ephorus, and his chronology is notoriously muddled, he forces events into annual slots and misdates them. His narrative is thinner and less analytical than a contemporary's, and its quality depends entirely on the lost source behind it (2 marks).
Judgement: The later tradition is highly useful as a corrective supplement that restores what Xenophon suppresses, but unreliable in detail, especially dating, so it must be used with Xenophon, the orators and inscriptions rather than trusted alone. Its value rises where it rests on good lost sources such as the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia behind Ephorus, and falls where Diodorus compresses or miscopies (2 marks).

Marker's note: markers reward separating Diodorus' gap-filling value from his chronological unreliability, and reaching a judgement rather than describing the source.

exam25 marksTo what extent does the nature of the surviving sources distort our picture of the Greek world from 404 to 336 BC? In your response, refer to relevant sources and historians' interpretations.

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A Band-6 response needs a clear thesis, argument lines tied to specific evidence, historiography, a model paragraph and a judgement answering "to what extent." This is a plan plus one model paragraph.

Thesis: The fourth-century record is genuinely distorted, because our one contemporary narrative is partisan and full of silences, and everything else is later, derivative or propagandist; but the distortion is largely recoverable, because the sources' biases run in different directions and can be triangulated, so a critical historian can correct the picture rather than being trapped by it.
Argument line 1: the contemporary narrative is warped by bias and omission: Xenophon's Hellenica is the only continuous eyewitness account, but he was pro-Spartan and devoted to Agesilaus, and he omits the Second Athenian Confederacy (378/377 BC), the freeing of Messenia, the foundation of Megalopolis and much of Epaminondas' achievement. Cawkwell argued these silences make Xenophon dangerous used alone; Buckler showed how much of the Theban hegemony has to be reconstructed against him.
Argument line 2: the supplements are late or interested: Diodorus Siculus (first century BC), drawing on the lost Ephorus, restores much that Xenophon omits but is a muddled, second-hand compiler with unreliable dates. The Attic orators (Demosthenes, Isocrates, Aeschines) are contemporary but are advocates whose speeches aim to win votes, not to report. Plutarch's Lives (second century AD) preserve lost material but are moralising biography written five centuries later.
Argument line 3: the distortion is patterned, and therefore recoverable: The biases pull in opposite directions, Xenophon pro-Spartan, Demosthenes anti-Macedonian, Isocrates pro-Philip, so they check one another. Documentary evidence, above all inscriptions such as the founding decree of the Second Athenian Confederacy, and the fragmentary but high-quality Hellenica Oxyrhynchia behind Ephorus, gives fixed points independent of any one writer's agenda.
Argument line 4: but real gaps remain: No fourth-century Thucydides survives; Thebes in particular has no friendly contemporary historian, so its brief supremacy is seen mostly through hostile or late eyes. Some questions, motives, numbers, exact chronology, cannot be settled, and Cartledge notes that Thebes remains "the forgotten city" partly because of this source imbalance.
Historiography: Cawkwell dissects Xenophon's omissions; Buckler rebuilds the Theban hegemony from the non-Xenophontic evidence; Hornblower treats the fourth century as source-poor by comparison with the fifth and insists on triangulation; Cartledge argues the tradition has unfairly eclipsed Thebes; Worthington and Hammond reconstruct Philip largely from Diodorus and the orators read critically.
Model paragraph (argument line 3): The strongest reason the distortion is recoverable is that the sources disagree usefully. Where Xenophon's silence would leave Messene and Megalopolis almost invisible, Diodorus, drawing on Ephorus, records them; where an orator's spin would mislead, a rival orator supplies the opposite case, and an inscription such as the Confederacy decree of 378/377 BC fixes what actually promised. The historian's task, as Hornblower insists, is not to pick one authority but to set the partisan contemporary against the derivative later narrative and the documentary record, so that each source's bias becomes a tool for locating the truth rather than a barrier to it.
Judgement: To a significant but not disabling extent: the sources distort the fourth century heavily, above all through Xenophon's bias and silences and the lateness of the alternatives, yet because the distortions are known, opposed and partly offset by documents, a critical reconstruction is possible, though gaps, especially around Thebes, remain permanent.

Marker's note: markers reward a sustained answer to "to what extent," precise use of named sources with dates, historians used to build the case, and an explicit judgement that both concedes the distortion and shows how far it can be corrected.