Arrian
 |
Alexander the Great |
Lucius Flavius Arrianus 'Xenophon' (c.
92-c.
175), known in English as
Arrian, was a
Greek historian and
philosopher of the
Roman period. As with other authors of the
Second Sophistic Arrian wrote primarily in
Attic. His works preserve the philosophy of
Epictetus, and include an important account of
Alexander the Great, the
Anabasis of Alexander, as well as a description of
Nearchus' voyage from
India following
Alexander's conquest, the
Indica. He is not to be confused with the
Athenian military leader and author,
Xenophon from the 4th century BC, whose most well known work was also titled
Anabasis.
Arrian was born in the coastal town of
Nicomedia (now
Izmit), the capital of the Roman province of
Bithynia, in what is now north-western
Turkey, about 70 km from
Byzantium (now
Istanbul). He studied philosophy in
Nicopolis in
Epirus, under the
Stoic philosopher
Epictetus, and wrote two books about the philosopher's teachings. At the same time he entered the Imperial service, and served in
Gaul and on the
Danube frontier. In
129 he held the office of
Consul. In
130 he was appointed governor of
Cappadocia and commander of the Roman
legions on the border with
Armenia. It was unusual at this time for a Greek to hold such high military command.
In
135, he repelled an
Alan invasion by successfully organizing the legions and auxiliary troops at his disposal, among which
legions XII Fulminata and
XV Apollinaris. He deployed the legionaries in depth supported by javelin throwers, archers, and horse archers in the rear ranks and defeated the assault of the Alan
cataphracts using these
combined arms tactics. During this period Arrian wrote several works, in
Latin, on military tactics, including
Ektaxis kata Alanoon, which detailed the above battle against the Alans and the
Techne Taktika.
On the death of his patron, the Emperor
Hadrian, in
138, Arrian retired to
Athens, where he became a citizen and a member of the
Boule (Council). In
145 he held the post of
Archon, once the city's leading political post but by this time an honorary one. It was here that he devoted himself to history, writing his most important work, the
Anabasis Alexandri or
The Campaigns of Alexander. He also wrote the
Indica, an account of the voyage by Alexander's fleet from
India to the
Persian Gulf under
Nearchus. He also wrote a political history of the Greek world after Alexander, most of which is lost. Arrian died in Athens in about
175.
Arrian is an important historian because his work on Alexander is the oldest surviving complete account of the
Macedonian conqueror. Arrian was able to use sources which are now lost, such as the contemporary works by
Callisthenes (the nephew of Alexander's tutor
Aristotle),
Onesicritus,
Nearchus and
Aristobulus. Most important of all, Arrian had the biography of Alexander by
Ptolemy, one of Alexander's leading generals and allegedly his half-brother.
Arrian's work is to a considerable extent a reworking of Ptolemy, with material from other writers, particularly Aristobulus, brought in where Arrian thought them useful. Ptolemy was a general, and Arrian relied on him most for details of Alexander's battles, on which Ptolemy was certainly well informed. Details of geography and natural history were taken from Aristobulus, although Arrian himself had a wide knowledge of
Anatolia and other eastern regions.
Today more interest focuses on Alexander as a man and as a political leader, and here Arrian's sources are less clear and his reliability more questionable. Probably it was not possible for Arrian to recover an accurate picture of Alexander's personality 400 years after his death, when most of his sources were partisan in one way or another. Aristobulus, for example, was known as
kolax, the flatterer, while other sources were equally hostile.
Arrian was in any case primarily a military historian, and here he followed his great model (from whom he earned his nickname), the terse and narrowly-focused soldier-historian
Xenophon. He has little to say about Alexander's personal life, his role in Greek politics or the reasons why the campaign against
Persia was launched in the first place.
Nevertheless, Arrian's work gives a reasonably full account of Alexander's life during the campaign, and in his personal assessment of Alexander he steers a judicious course between flattery and condemnation. He concedes Alexander's vanity, suspiciousness and fondness for drink, but acquits him of the grosser crimes some writers accused him of. But he does not discuss Alexander's wider political views or other aspects of his life that the modern reader would like to know more about.
Arrian in his daily life would have spoken the
koine, or "common Greek" of the
Hellenistic and Roman periods. But as a writer he felt obliged to follow the prevailing view that serious works must be composed in "good Greek," which meant imitating as closely as possible the grammar and literary style of the Athenian writers of the
5th century BC. In Arrian's case this meant following the Attic style of
Xenophon and
Thucydides. This is somewhat the equivalent of a modern historian trying to write in the English of
Shakespeare. His account of
India, the
Indica, was written in an equally wooden imitation of the language of
Herodotus.
The result is a work which was inevitably stilted and artificial, although Arrian handled the strain of writing 500-year-old Greek better than some of his contemporaries. Xenophon was a good model of clear and unpretentious prose, which Arrian was wise to follow. Modern historians may regret that so many of the earlier works on Alexander have been lost, but they are grateful to Arrian for preserving so much.
* The Roman historian
Quintus Curtius Rufus wrote
Historiae Alexandri Magni. a biography of Alexander the Great in
Latin in ten books of which the last eight survive.
* The Greek historian
Diodorus Siculus wrote
Library of world history in forty books; of these book seventeen covers the conquests of Alexander.
* The Greek historian/biographer
Plutarch of
Chaeronea wrote the
On the Fortune or the Virtue of Alexander the Great and a
Alexander* The Roman historian
Justin wrote an epitome of the
Historiae Philippicae written by
Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus, in 44 books. Of these books 12 and 13 cover Alexander
*Arrian,
The Campaigns of Alexander, translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt, Penguin Classics, 1958 and numerous subsequent editions.
*
Livius,
Arrian of Nicomedia by Jona Lendering
Texts online
*Arrian,
Anabasis Alexandri, translated by E.J. Chinnock (1893)
*Arrian,
Events after Alexander (from Photius'
Bibliotheca) translated by John Rooke, edited by Tim Spalding
*Arrian,
The Indica translated by E. Iliff Robson.
*Arrian,
Array against the Alans translated by Sander van Dorst, with the Greek (transliterated) and copious notes.
* Arrian,
(section 4.18.4-19.6), (
Sogdian Rock), translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt
* Photius'
excerpt of Arrian's
Anabasis, translated by J.S. Freese
* Photius'
excerpt of Arrian's
Bithynica, translated by J.S. Freese
* Photius'
excerpt of Arrian's
Parthica, translated by J.S. Freese
* Photius'
excerpt of Arrian's
Events after Alexander, translated by J.S. Freese
