Lucius Flavius Arrianus, Arrian for short, was a Greek who enjoyed a distinguished political career culminating in a consulship under the Roman emperor Hadrian. His Anabasis describes Alexander’s career from his accession to his death. Arrian modeled his style partly on that of his namesake, the Athenian soldier and author Xenophon, and also on the great historians Herodotus and Thucydides. His main sources were Ptolemy and Aristobulus. He is the best authority on Alexander’s campaigns, but, while he could be critical of the king, his main purpose was to justify him.
In addition to the Anabasis, Arrian also wrote the Indica, the chief theme of which is the voyage of Nearchus’s fleet from the river Indus to the Persian Gulf but which also discusses the history, geography, and culture of the Indian subcontinent.
The anonymous Itinerary was written about A.D. 340 and was dedicated to the emperor Constantius II. It tells the story of Alexander’s journey of conquest and is influenced by Arrian.
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OTHER CLASSICAL AUTHORITIES TOUCH on Alexander, among them the Greek historian Polybius during the second century B.C.; also the Greek geographer Strabo and the Roman historian Livy, both of whom wrote in the first century B.C. Three military authors cast light on tactics and siege warfare: Aelian, Polyaenus, and Vitruvius.
Perhaps the oddest text, or, rather, assemblage of texts and versions, is the Alexander Romance. Popular in medieval times and much translated, it mixes legends and sensationalist fantasies with accurate data.
Archaeologists have unearthed inscriptions in Greek cities which mainly record legislation passed by people’s assemblies and displayed in public places. They reflect the impact of Alexander’s doings, but seldom the doings themselves. Most remarkably, royal Macedonian tombs have been unearthed, most of them untouched by robbers.
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A VOICE IS MISSING, that of the Persians.
In our literary sources, the fall of the Achaemenids is viewed entirely from the Greek and Macedonian point of view. The Great King made announcements, sent messages, and carved his successes into mountain cliffs; there was architecture and sculpture, but no histories, no dramas or poems, no letters have survived—indeed, we do not know whether they were ever written. What did the Persians think of the Greeks? What was their political worldview? What did their subject peoples think of them? How did the court and the Great King himself react to events?
There is not even a memory.
All we have is what the cold Hellenic stare saw.
ANCIENT SOURCES, ABBREVIATIONS
Many of the ancient authors cited below appear in the Loeb Classical series where Greek and Latin originals are accompanied by versions in English. Good translations for many of them can also be found in Penguin Classics.
Ael NA
Aelian, De Natura Animalium
Ael Tact
Aelian,Tactica
Ael VH
Aelian,Varia Historia
Aesch Ctes
Aeschines, Against Ctesiphon
Aesch Emb
Aeschines,On the False Embassy
Aesch Tim
Aeschines,Against Timarchus
Aeschyl Ag
Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Aes
Aesop, Fables (trans. Olivia and Robert Temple, Penguin Classics, London, 1998)
Alex Chron https://www.livius.org/sources/content/mesopotamian-chronicles-content/bchp-1-alexander-chronicle/
Alexander Chronicle (BM 36304)
Anti GA
Antipater of Sidon, see Greek Anthology
Ar Cael
Aristotle, On the Heavens (De Caelo)
Ar Anim
Aristotle, Inquiries into Animals
Ar Nic Eth
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
Ar Meta
Aristotle, Metaphysics
Ar Met
Aristotle, Meteorologica
Ar Pol
Aristotle, Politics
Ar Rhet
Aristotle, Rhetoric
Arrian
Arrian, Anabasis
Arr Ind
Arrian, Indica
Arr Succ
Arrian, Successors to Alexander
Ascl
Asclepiodotus, Tactics
Athen
Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae (Learned Banqueters)
Aug
Augustine, City of God
Aul Gell
Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae
Cic Arch
Cicero, Pro Archia
Cic Att
Cicero, Letters to Atticus (trans. D. R. Shackleton-Bailey, Duckworth, London, 1971)
Cic Nat
Cicero, De Natura Deorum
Cic Rosc
Cicero, Pro Roscio Amerino
Cic Tusc Disp
Cicero, Tusculan Disputations
Clem
Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis
Nep Eum
Cornelius Nepos, Lives of the Eminent Commanders, Eumenes
Curt
Curtius Rufus, Quintus, Historiae Alexandri Magni Macedonis (The History of Alexander)
Dem
Demosthenes, Speeches
Dem Crown
Demosthenes, On the Crown
Did
Didymus, On Philippics of Demosthenes
Dio Chrys
Dio Chrystostom, Discourses
Diod Sic
Diodorus Siculus, Library of History
Diog Lae
Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers
Diog
Diogenes of Sinope, Letters (attrib.)
Dion Hal
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, To Ammaeus
Eur Androm
Euripides, Andromache
Eur Andr
Euripides, Andromeda
Eur Bacc
Euripides, Bacchae
Eur Med
Euripides, Medea
Ezek
Ezekiel (Bible, New International Version)
Al
ex Rom
The Greek Alexander Romance (trans. Richard Stoneman, Penguin, Harmondsworth 1991)
Gk Anth
Greek Anthology
GHI
Greek Historical Inscriptions 359–323 B.C. (trans. P. J. Rhodes, London Association of Classical Teachers, 1971)
142 FS
Hegesias of Magnesia FGrH
Herod
Herodotus, Histories
Hes WD
Hesiod, Works and Days
Il
Homer, Iliad
Hom Hymns
Homeric Hymns
Hyp Dem
Hypereides, Against Demosthenes
Hyp Fun
Hypereides, Funeral Oration
Isoc Alex
Isocrates, Letters to Alexander
Isoc Phil
Isocrates, Oration to Philip
Isoc Plat
Isocrates, Plataicus
IG
Inscriptions Graecae
Itin
Itinerary of Alexander (Itinerarium Alexandri)
Jos Ant
Josephus, Flavius, Antiquities of the Jews
Jos Api
Josephus, Flavius, Against Apion
Just
Justinus (Justin), Marcus Junianus, Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus (trans. Rev. J. S. Watson, Henry G. Bohn, London, 1853)
LiberM
Liber de Morte, Concerning the Death and Testament of Alexander the Great
Luc Alex
Lucian, Alexander the False Prophet
Luc Dial Dead
Lucian, Dialogues of the Dead
Luc Herod
Lucian, Herodotus and Aetion
Luc Slander
Lucian, Slander
Metz
Metz Epitome
Oxy
Oxyrhycus Papyri
Od
Odyssey,Homer
Paus
Pausanias, Description of Greece
Phot
Photius, Bibliotheca
Pind
Pindar, Odes (trans. Maurice Bowra, Penguin Classics, Harmondsworth 1982)
Pind Enc
Pindar, Encomia
Pind Pyth
Pindar, Pythians
Plato Gorg
Plato, Gorgias
Plato Rep
Plato, The Republic
Pliny
Pliny, Natural History
Plut Alex
Plutarch, Age of Alexander (trans. Scott-Kilvert, Ian, and Duff, Timothy E. [also contains Lives of Artaxerxes, Pelopidas, Dion, Timoleon, Demosthenes, Phocion, Alexander, Eumenes, Demetrius, Pyrrhus] Introductions and Notes, Duff, Timothy E., Penguin Books, London, 2011)
Plut Erot
Plutarch, Erotikos (Dialogue on Love)
Plut Age
Plutarch, Life of Agesilaus
Plut Alex
Plutarch, Life of Alexander
Plut Gal
Plutarch, Life of Galba
Plut Mor
Plutarch, Moralia
Plut Fort
Plutarch, On the Fortune or the Virtue of Alexander
Plut Pel
Plutarch, Life of Pelopidas
Plut Per
Plutarch, Life of Pericles
Plut Rom
Plutarch, Life of Romulus
Poll
Pollux, Julius, Onomasticon (pub. Imm. Bekker, Berlin, 1846)
Poly
Polyaenus, Stratagems in War
Polyb
Polybius, The Histories
Quint
Quintilian, Institutes of Oratory
Strabo
Strabo, Geography
Suda
Suda
Theo Phil
Theopompus, Philippica
Theo Hell
Theopompus, Hellenica
Val Max
Valerius Maximus, Memorable Deeds and Sayings
Virg Aen
Virgil, Aeneid
Vit
Vitruvius, De Architectura
Xen Cyr
Xenophon, Cyropaedia
Xen Anab
Xenophon, Anabasis
Xen Hip
Xenophon, Hipparchicus (On the Cavalry Commander)
MODERN SOURCES
Here is a selection from modern scholarship for the interested general reader. I am especially grateful for two invaluable compendiums—the Oxford Classical Dictionary, which contains in brief everything worth knowing about the Greek and Roman world, and Waldemar Heckel’s Who’s Who in the Age of Alexander the Great (for details of both, see below).
Arsuaga, Juan-Luis, and others. The Lameness of King Philip II and Royal Tomb I at Vergina, Macedonia. Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Science of the United States of America, vol. 112, no. 32, 2015.
Badian, Ernst. “Alexander’s Mules.” New York Review of Books, December 20, 1979.
———. Collected Papers on Alexander the Great. Abingdon Oxon: Routledge, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, 2012.
Bodson, Liliane. “Alexander the Great and the Scientific Exploration of the Oriental Part of His Empire: An Overview of the Background, Trends and Results.” Ancient Society (published by the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium), vol. 22 (1991), pp. 127–38.
Bosworth, A. B., Conquest and Empire: The Reign of Alexander the Great. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Bosworth, A. B., and E. J. Baynham. Alexander the Great in Fact and Fiction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Briant, Pierre. From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire (tran
s. Peter D. Daniels). Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisembrauns, 2002.
Brill’s New Jacoby, Leiden, Netherlands, 2007.
Cambridge Ancient History, Volume 6, the Fourth Century B.C. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Carney, Elizabeth. “Macedonians and Mutiny: Discipline and Indiscipline in the Army of Philip and Alexander.” Classical Philology, vol. 91, no. 1 (January 1996), pp. 19–44.
———. Olympias, Mother of Alexander the Great. New York and Abingdon: Routledge, 2006.
———. Women and Monarchy in Macedonia. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000.
Ceccarelli, Paola. Ancient Greek Letter Writing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Chugg, Andrew. Alexander’s Lovers. Raleigh, N.C.: Lulu.com, 2016.
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