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Ephorus of Cyme

Ephorus of Cyme: (Greek: Ἔφορος ὁ Κυμαῖος): Greek historian, living in the fourth century BCE.

Ephorus of Cyme, who lived from c.400 to c.330 BCE and was a disciple by Isocrates, is the author of a General History in thirty books, which began in legendary times and ended around 340 BCE. It is lost, but we know that Diodorus of Sicily summarized large parts of it. The geographer Strabo of Amasia cites the General History extensively in his Geography. The philosopher Plutarch was also familiar with the work.

We get the impression that Ephorus did not recount his sources (e.g., the Histories of Herodotus) uncritically, but sought additional information, in which he seems to have made fairly systematic use of inscriptions. If the anecdote, told by Plutarch,^note is true that Ephorus refused to join Alexander's Persian campaign, he must have been quite a celebrity.

It appears that Ephorus' son Demophilus added the thirtieth book, dealing with the Third Sacred War and the war for Perinthus in 340 BCE.