Irlandos at 12:23, August 23, 2006

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'''Lucius Flavius Arrianus 'Xenophon'''' (c. [[92]]-c. [[175]]), known in English as '''Arrian''', was a [[Greeks|Greek]] historian and philosopher of the Roman period. As with other authors of the [[Second Sophistic]] Arrian wrote primarily in [[Attic dialect|Attic]]. His works preserve the philosophy of [[Epictetus]], and include an important account of [[Alexander the Great]], the ''[[Anabasis Alexandri|Anabasis of Alexander]]'', as well as a description of [[Nearchus]]' voyage from India following [[Alexander the Great|Alexander]]'s conquest, the ''[[Indica (Arrian)|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 (Xenophon)|Anabasis]]''.

==Arrian's life==

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 (Arrian)|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's Work==
Arrian is an important historian because his work on Alexander is the oldest surviving complete account of the [[Macedon|Macedonian]] conqueror. Arrian was able to use sources which are now mostly lost, such as the contemporary works by [[Callisthenes]] (the nephew of Alexander's tutor [[Aristotle]]), [[Onesicritus]], [[Nearchus]] and [[Aristobulus of Cassandreia|Aristobulus]]. Most important of all, Arrian had the biography of Alexander by [[Ptolemy I of Egypt|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 [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]]. His account of India, the [[Indica (Arrian)|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.

==Other surviving classical histories of Alexander==
* 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

==Further reading==

*Arrian, ''The Campaigns of Alexander'', translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt, Penguin Classics, 1958 and numerous subsequent editions.

== External links ==
* [http://www.livius.org Livius], [http://www.livius.org/arl-arz/arrian/arrian.htm Arrian of Nicomedia] by Jona Lendering

===Texts online===
*Arrian, [http://websfor.org/alexander/arrian/intro.asp Anabasis Alexandri], translated by E.J. Chinnock (1893)
*Arrian, Anabasis Alexandri, [http://www.soa.org.uk/public/downloads/pdf/A%20Ridge%20Too%20Far.pdf#search=%22%22later%20achaemenid%22%20arsames%22 (section 1.13-16) (pdf, pp. 18-19)], [[Battle of Granicus]], from the [[Loeb]] edition.
* Arrian, Anabasis Alexandri, [http://www.livius.org/aj-al/alexander/alexander_t54.html (section 4.18.4-19.6)], Sogdian Rock, translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt
*Arrian, [http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/library-arrian/events-1.htm Events after Alexander] (from Photius' ''Bibliotheca'') translated by John Rooke, edited by Tim Spalding
*Arrian, [http://www.und.ac.za/und/classics/india/arrian.htm The Indica] translated by E. Iliff Robson.
*Arrian, [http://members.tripod.com/~S_van_Dorst/Ancient_Warfare/Rome/Sources/ektaxis.html Array against the Alans] translated by Sander van Dorst, with the Greek (transliterated) and copious notes.
* Photius' [http://www.livius.org/arl-arz/arrian/anabasis.html excerpt] of Arrian's ''Anabasis'', translated by J.S. Freese
* Photius' [http://www.livius.org/arl-arz/arrian/bithynica.html excerpt] of Arrian's ''Bithynica'', translated by J.S. Freese
* Photius' [http://www.livius.org/arl-arz/arrian/parthica.html excerpt] of Arrian's ''Parthica'', translated by J.S. Freese
* Photius' [http://www.livius.org/arl-arz/arrian/metalex.html excerpt] of Arrian's ''Events after Alexander'', translated by J.S. Freese

{{Credit wikipedia}}

[[Category:92 births]]
[[Category:175 deaths]]
[[Category:Ancient Greeks]]

Arrian - Revision history

Irlandos at 12:23, August 23, 2006