Sosylus of Lacedaemon (

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

: Σωσύλος) was a Greek

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...

in the 3rd century BC. He would campaign alongside

Hannibal Hannibal (; ; 247 – between 183 and 181 BC) was a Punic people, Carthaginian general and statesman who commanded the forces of Ancient Carthage, Carthage in their battle against the Roman Republic during the Second Punic War. Hannibal's fat ...

throughout the

Second Punic War The Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC) was the second of Punic Wars, three wars fought between Ancient Carthage, Carthage and Roman Republic, Rome, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean Basin, Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC. For ...

, teaching him Greek and recording the events of his campaign.

Biography

There are some disputes regarding where Sosylus was born. The predominant theory sides with his epithet, claiming that he was born in

Lacedaemon Sparta was a prominent city-state in Laconia in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (), while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement in the valley of Evrotas river in Laconia, in southeastern Pe ...

. There is evidence however, that he may have been born in Ilium or

Elis Elis also known as Ellis or Ilia (, ''Eleia'') is a historic region in the western part of the Peloponnese peninsula of Greece. It is administered as a regional unit of the modern region of Western Greece. Its capital is Pyrgos. Until 2011 it ...

as stated by competing testimony from

Diodorus Diodorus Siculus or Diodorus of Sicily (; 1st century BC) was an ancient Greek historian from Sicily. He is known for writing the monumental universal history '' Bibliotheca historica'', in forty books, fifteen of which survive intact, b ...

Serving Hannibal

Sosylus accompanied

during the

and is the author of the ''Deeds of Hannibal'', a lost historical work of seven volumes; only fragments of the work are known. It is often assumed that Sosylus only recounted the first part of the war due to

Battle of Ebro River A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and force co ...

being recorded in the fourth volume of the work. Sosylus taught Hannibal Greek, while also recording the events of the war. He also is believed to have served as an advisor to Hannibal. It is possible that

Polybios Polybius (; , ; ) was a Greek historian of the middle Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work , a universal history documenting the rise of Rome in the Mediterranean in the third and second centuries BC. It covered the period of 264–146 B ...

may have used material from Sosylus' history for his writing about Hannibal in ''The Histories''.

References

{{Authority control Hellenistic-era historians People of the Second Punic War 3rd-century BC Greek historians Ancient Greek historians known only from secondary sources