SOURCE: "An Introduction to Campaspe," in "Campaspe": "Sappho and Phao," by John Lyly, edited by G. K. Hunter and David Bevington, Manchester University Press, 1991, pp. 1-43.

In the following excerpt, Hunter examines the source materials and traditions Lyly utilized in Campaspe.

The historical occasion for the action of Campaspe was found by Lyly most probably in a source he employed several times in his play: Plutarch's life of Alexander, used apparently in the translation by Sir Thomas North. Plutarch tells us of Alexander's savage destruction of the city of Thebes and of the shock waves this event sent through the Greek world, felt particularly strongly in Athens. In this aftermath, we are told:

Then the Grecians having assembled a general council of all the states of Greece within the straits of Peloponnesus, there it was determined that they would make war with the Persians. Whereupon they chose Alexander...