Douris de Samos

Douris de Samos , born towards 340 av. J. - C., died towards 270, is a Greek historian contemporary Diadoque S whose principal work is a history of the Royaume of Macedonia, the Macédoniques . It was a time the tyrant of Samos.

Biography

Allegedly descendant of Alcibiade, Douris was perhaps born in exile, Samos having been emptied of its inhabitants and having been occupied of 342 with 324 av. J. - C. by clérouques Athenian. Still young man, it triumphs with a test over boxing to the Olympic Games; a statute is set up on the site of Olympie to commemorate this victory. On its return on the island of Samos, it obtains the tyranny of from it 301 until an unknown date. It is known that he survived the year 281 since a mention of Pline Old the proves that he wrote during this year.

He is the brother of Lyncéos de Samos, author of comedies and raises of the philosopher Péripatéticien Théophraste. A tradition forged by the Greek scholar Adamántios Koraïs, which is based on an erroneous interpretation of the Deipnosophistes of Athénée, would like that Douris is also the pupil of Théophraste to the Lycée. For as much the fragments of Douris seem to show a moral proximity with the peripateticians.

Work

Genuine polygraph, Douris composes of very many works, which all are lost, of which most notable are the Histoire of Agathoclès and especially the Macédoniques ( Makedonika ). One puts nevertheless the question to know if the Macédoniques are a work distinct or part of a Histoire from Greece of greater width. It writes also the Annales History of Samos , frequently quoted by the old ones, and a work on the tragic actors Euripide and Sophocle.

The Macédoniques , its principal work, extend from dead from Amyntas III until the battle from Couroupédion (370 with 281 av. J. - C.). The Macédoniques were used by later ancient authors to write the history of the Diadoque S and Royaume of Macedonia:

Plutarque, Life of Eumène , Life of Démétrios ;
Trogue-Pumped via Justin, Shortened philippic stories of Trogue-Pumped , XIII, XIV.

According to the preserved fragments, the work of Douris shows through a tragic ideal a design of the history far away from the pragmatism of Thucydide and historiography rhetoric. Douris indeed sticks to give an account of the menus details, of the anecdotic facts which reveal the temperament of the great men, the tragic biography being the kind of predilection of the Péripatéticien S to which it is close. Hiéronymos de Cardia seems to have written its Histoire of the Successors of Alexandre in reaction to the Macédoniques of Douris, prompt with the literary embellishment and dramatization. As for Plutarque, it quotes several Douris times like a source while questioning the veracity of its matter.

According to certain modern historians, Douris not does not testify to a great consideration towards the Macedonians; he would have opposed by Greek patriotism the virtuous Démosthène, Phocion and Eumène de Cardia with the excessive and immoral Diadoques: Polyperchon proclamation an immoderate taste for drink; Démétrios is lost in the luxury and temperance. For as much Elien, which is inspired there by Douris, negatively compares the presumedly modest origins of Antigone, Eumène and Polyperchon. As for the remarks of Douris on manners of diadoques, they hardly start their political prestige. The Vie of Démétrios , that Plutarque drew partly from the Makedonika , does not testify indeed to any hostility with regard to the Antigonides. Douris also seems to have spared Lysimaque, king of the close Thrace. Pausanias, while being inspired here by Douris, indeed refutes the charges of impiétés formulated against Lysimaque by Hiéronymos de Cardia and attenuates its responsibility in the murder for his/her son, Agathoclès. Finally Douris does not testify to any hostility with regard to Cassandre, guard of Péripatéticiens to which Théophraste dedicated a perished treaty basileas .

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