At a time when the social authority of the poets was being contested in the revolutionary medium of prose, it is remarkable that in the opening chapters of the Histories Herodotus asserts his commitment to the commemorative function of the poetic tradition, and his affiliation with the Homeric epics; that in the Lydian logos to follow, he chooses the poet Solon to articulate human and divine causes of the fundamental principle of Herodotean historiography, the transience of human prosperity; and that he elaborates the programmatic story of Croesus’ rise and fall with elements drawn from Homeric, lyric, and tragic poetry. In this way Herodotus establishes from the outset the hybrid nature of his work, in which he uses the artistic resources of the poets to channel and challenge their authority, and to engage the emotions and intellect of a broad Hellenic audience steeped in the traditions of poetic performance.

The Cyclades positively benefitted from the economic and religious successes of Delos (Figures A.7–A.8), enabling wider business opportunities across the islands due to phase transition, as evidenced by the names of Italian bankers and traders on islands such as Tenos (S27) and Melos (S16) (Mendoni and Zoumbaki, 2008, 36; 41–2). Additionally, individual islands exploited their own resources for marketing: for example, Parian and Naxian marble and Siphnian and Seriphian ores. The civil wars, attacks on and eventual collapse of Delos in the mid first century bce resulted in a significant depletion of visitors to the archipelago, with a resonating impact on the islands of the Cyclades. The result was a direct economic crash and an indirect one due to the break in religious traffic, which had brought with it its own income stream. These problems were further exacerbated by pirates, who took their opportunities to profit from a troubled region. As noted in Chapter 1, piracy was enough to create stress on the economy, as is evidenced by the island of Tenos, which was in debt to the banker L. Aufidius Bassus (IG XII 5, 860) (de Souza, 2002, 163) (TEN 6).

Chapter 4 tackles how the Secret Book of John interprets the book of Genesis. It shows how the writer(s) of the Secret Book interpreted Genesis twice: once for the upper world and once for the lower world. It shows how, even with oppositional statements against Moses, the Secret Book continually depends on Genesis for its content and storyline. A brief section on how the Secret Book employs other parts of the Bible (in particular, the Gospel of John) is included.

The Cycladic islands, which lie scattered in the centre of the Aegean (Map 1.1), have had periods of outstanding achievements, as in the Bronze Age and Hellenistic periods, which have put into sharp relief the supposed dispiriting lows in the Roman and Late Antique periods. Investigating the veracity of these assumed low periods is made challenging by a dearth of historical or literary evidence pertaining to the islands during these periods. When they are mentioned, it is largely in terms of their insularity – as havens for pirates, places of exile or targets for invasions. Islands are often the first to experience change and, while this can be both positive and negative, the positives tend to be overshadowed by the negatives. Furthermore, scholarship on the islands has commonly taken a top-down approach, in which they are viewed through a lens of passiveness and as pawns in wider machinations rather than as decision-making entities in themselves. However, as Baldacchino (2008) warned, it is important not to overcompensate in attempting to move away from the top-down approach to the islands and place too much emphasis on their roles and importance in the broader context of study.

The poetry of the historical Solon plays an important role in Herodotus’ portrayal of the Athenian in the Histories. Herodotus adapts prominent themes from Solon’s poetry to reflect issues of historical, ethnographical, and historiographical interest. Like his poetic predecessor, the Herodotean Solon redefines the nature of prosperity, but in a new context (his visit to Croesus’ Lydian court) that highlights a significant ethnographical difference between Eastern and Western values, and anticipates the recurrent historical scenario whereby more luxurious “soft” peoples tend to be overthrown by more primitive “hard” peoples. The unpredictable outcome of human endeavors is another poetic theme that Herodotus mines for its historical and metahistorical resonance: Croesus’ inability to foresee the end of his prosperity results in the expansion of Persian rule throughout Asia, while the Solonian admonition to “look to the end” informs Herodotus’ own choice of the recent past as the subject of his inquiry.

Chapter 7 focuses on the reception history of the Secret Book of John, discussing the significance of the expansion of the shorter version into the longer, and treating how the Secret Book was received or at least echoed in other Nag Hammadi and gnostic texts.

The most significant impact on the Cyclades in the first century bce was the demise of Delos and, contrary to common view, the inclusion of the Cyclades in the Roman Empire provided opportunities for these resilient islands to recover and develop. The collapse of the Delian economic and religious networks reverberated around the Cyclades. Islands such as Tenos that had flourished through phase transition, with renowned sanctuaries and elites, bankers and traders, began to fall to the side lines. As new smaller networks grew out of the splintered Delian one, islands such as Melos and Thera, which had been out of the Delian sphere, began to come to the fore. Without exception, the islands show remarkable resilience in the face of significant external threats – from loss of income livelihood to attacks by pirates. It is through this diachronic perspective that the success of the Cyclades become obvious.

This introduction outlines current understandings and paradoxes of the chorus. It discusses the single and formal role that various critical traditions have assigned to the tragic chorus over the centuries, and how a focus on the chorus’ fragmentations, augmentations, interruptions and interactions is better suited to capture the varied activities that the tragic chorus undertakes in fifth-century Athenian theatre. To justify why a new account of choral performance is necessary, the introduction also examines the relative neglect of the chorus in scholarly accounts of ancient performance, the history and transmission of dramatic texts, and studies exploring the politics of tragic and literary form. It also offers an overview of choral knowns and unknowns, including the chorus’ size and composition, their delivery and performance, and their arrangement on the ancient theatrical space.

Herodotus’ numerous citations of poets and their work in the Histories demonstrate his deep, broad knowledge of the Greek song-culture, including epic, lyric, and tragic poetry. Herodotus displays extraordinary knowledge of the epic tradition in his critique of the Homeric version of the fall of Troy, which he rejects in favor of the (allegedly) ancient Egyptian tradition that Helen was detained by King Proteus and never reached Troy. The assertion that Homer rejected this version of the story as inappropriate for epic signals Herodotus’ awareness of the different generic constraints under which epic poets operate. The use that Herodotus makes of Aristeas’ hexameter poem the Arimaspeia is especially difficult to assess because of our limited knowledge of the poem. The strongest evidence for Aristean influence on Herodotus may lie in the latter’s exploration of cultural relativism, which includes critical assessments of Greek customs articulated by non-Greek characters in the Histories.

Keywords and images are deployed to communicate the gospel message that, in the person of Jesus, the divine Father has made himself known in a world otherwise lost in error and illusion. Its readers are taught to regard themselves as the elect, called out of darkness into light.

Chapter 2 offers a fresh translation of the Secret Book of John primarily using Nag Hammadi Codex III, but filling in missing parts from the Berlin Codex (BG).