The Historians' History of the World 04

Abbot, E., History of Greece, London, 1892-1893.—Ælianus Claudius, ποικίλη ἱστορία, edited by Perizonius, Leyden, 1701, the Variable History of Ælianus (trans. by A. Fleming), London, 1576.—

Alfieri, V., Tragedy on Agis IV. King of Sparta.—Allcroft, A. H., Decline of Hellas, 371-323 B.C., London, 1894; (in collaboration with W. F. Masom

), Synopsis of Grecian History to 495 B.C., London, 1891.—Annual of the British School at Athens.—Anonymous, Der Griechisch-turkische Krieg des Jahres 1897, Berlin, 1898; Seven Essays on the Social Condition of the Ancient Greeks, Oxford, 1832.—

Aristobulus, as quoted by Plutarch, Arrian, etc. (in Müller’s Fragmenta).—Aristotle, Ἠθικὰ, edited by Zell, Heidelberg, 1820, 2 vols.; Πολιτικὰ, edited by Barthélemy St. Hilaire, with Fr. trans., Paris, 1837; Ethics, Politics (trans. by Gillies), London, 1804.—Arrianus

, Flavius, Ἀνάβασις Ἀλεξάνδρου, edited by F. Schmeider, Leipsic, 1798; The Anabasis of Alexander, London.

L. Flavius Arrianus, born at Nicomedia about 100 A.D., died at an advanced age during the reign of Marcus Aurelius.

In considering a career so romantic as that of Alexander, it is quite impossible that the historian should remain a calm, unmoved spectator of the incidents which he describes. We find, therefore, that the numerous biographers of Alexander have for the most part placed themselves explicitly on one or another of opposite sides. Either, on the one hand, they have considered Alexander as the greatest of heroes and most wonderful of men, or, on the other hand, have regarded him as merely the greatest of adventurers. It is tolerably easy, accordingly as one emphasises one side or another of the facts of Alexander’s history, to make out a seemingly good case from either of these points of view. But what we have elsewhere said about the sympathetical historian applies with full force here, and it is not to be expected that anyone can have written a really satisfactory biography of Alexander who has not been appreciative of those points of his genius which lie quite without the range of the ordinary adventurer. Thus it is not surprising to find that the really great biographies of Alexander, both those of antiquity and those of modern times, have been written from the sympathetic point of view.

The biography of Arrian, which, by common consent, far exceeds in importance all other writings on Alexander that have come down to us, is certainly most judicious in spirit, and probably as impartial as such a production could possibly be. Arrian does not spare the faults of Alexander nor hesitate to give them full expression, but he fully appreciates the greatness of his hero, and he undertook to write his life, as he himself explicitly states, because he felt that no one before him had done full justice to his subject. Arrian frankly states his opinion that his own production will be found not unworthy, and that, in virtue of it, he, himself, must be entitled to be regarded as one of the great writers of Greece. All things considered, it is, perhaps, strange that posterity should have declined to accede to this claim. The work of Arrian is indeed admitted on all hands to be a production of sterling merit—certainly one of the most impartial and judicial historical productions of antiquity. Yet, notwithstanding the extreme importance of his subject, the name of Arrian is comparatively little known to the general public, whereas the name of Xenophon, whom Arrian to some extent took for his master, is familiar to everyone, though the subject of his chief work was of such relative insignificance.