Oxyrhynchus Historian, The

Anonymous ancient Greek author of the first half of the fourth century B.C. who wrote the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia.

Fragments of the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia were found during excavations in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, in 1905–06 and in 1934. The recovered texts deal chronologically with the period of Greek history from 410 to 394 B.C. They give considerable attention to the Boeotian League. The account is remarkable for its objectivity and is a fine corrective to Xenophon’s Hellenica. Politically, the Oxyrhynchus historian was opposed to radical democracy, but he was also not an advocate of the Spartan system. His work was used extensively by the historians Ephorus (fourth century B.C.) and Diodorus Sicilus.