The Father of Lies

So, I finished Xenophon and bought Herodotus' Histories to follow up.

It looks promising. But I want to track down Diodorus of Sicily as well - apparently book 5 has some good stuff on the peoples of the west. It might have some extra on the Carthaginian 'dimension' which I'm interested in as I'm still working on my game 'Shekels, Shophetim and the Sea' which is all about Carthage and trade in the pre-Punic Wars era. Herodotus must talk about it a bit at least.

I have had some thoughts about why Xenophon and Thucydides don't talk about Carthage:
a) They're not Sicilian or Magna Graecian, and so it all seems a bit far away
b) Xenophon might be lumping Carthage in with the Persians so that they suffer from his 'Medizing' process where he simply doesn't discuss those that tried to ally with Persia, unless they're the Thebans
c) Carthage was recovering from its earlier wars with Syracuse
d) Xenophon and Thucydides don't talk about Massilia, Egypt, Cyrene and a whole lot of other places as well as Carthage. So no big deal

It does trouble me somewhat that there are only two or three references to the Carthaginians in both authors. It somewhat undermines my view of Carthaginian dominance in the Western Med at the time. But I think it simply didn't cross Xenophon or Thucydides' bows. Let's hope Herodotus and Diodorus are a bit more forthcoming. Otherwise I'll have to start on the Roman historians and they'll be even more biased.