Hellenica
Frontpage for the Loeb Classical Library edition, in two volumes. | |
| Author | Xenophon |
|---|---|
| Language | Ancient Greek |
| Text | Hellenica at Wikisource |
Hellenica (Ancient Greek: Ἑλληνικά) simply means writings on Greek (Hellenic) subjects. Several histories of the 4th-century BC Greece have borne the conventional Latin title Hellenica, of which very few survive. The most notable of the surviving histories is the Hellenica of the Ancient Greek writer Xenophon (also known as Hellenika, or A History of My Times).
The work was intended as a continuation of Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, which was left unfinished and ends abruptly in the year 411 BC. Xenophon's Hellenica covers the years 411-362 BC, through the end of the Peloponnesian War and its aftermath.
Hellenica is usually considered to be a difficult work for modern audiences to understand, as Xenophon often assumed his reader's knowledge of events.