Philip A. Stadter - Arrian of Nicomedia

1980 The University of North Carolina Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
ISBN 0-8078-1364-8
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 79-938

Stadter, Philip A

Arrian of Nicomedia.

Includes index.

1. Arrianus, Flavius. 2. Arrianus, Flavius. Anabasis. 3. Epictetus. I. Title. DF212.A77S7 938.090924 [B] 79-938
ISBN 0-8078-6598-2

ALTHOUGH Flavius Arrianus of Nicomedia is best known as the author of a history of Alexander the Great, that book was only one facet of an extraordinarily active life. In this book I have tried to present an overall picture of Arrian and his writings, viewing from several vantage points this man who was both typical of his age and one of its most interesting representatives. Despite the presence of such noteworthy figures as Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius, Galen and Plutarch, Lucian and Caracalla, the second century has not been studied with the care given the two centuries preceding it. A series of recent works on the larger intellectual movements of the century (one thinks of G. Bowersocks Greek Sophists in the Roman Empire or B. Reardons Courants littraires grecs des lie et IIle sicles aprs J.C.) has reawakened our curiosity toward this age, and a number of studies (among which should be noted especially those of A. B. Bosworth, who is also preparing a historical commentary to the Anabasis, of A. B. Breebaart, and of G. Wirth) have begun to treat Arrian as more than a source for Alexander the Great. Finally, the discovery of several new inscriptions has forced us to reconsider his biography, placing a more proper emphasis on his activity as a Roman citizen and senator. Arrian, like Plutarch, his senior by forty years, proudly preserved his Greek heritage in a Roman world. Unlike Plutarch, however, and unlike most of the Greek authors of this period, Arrian took an active part in the administration of the empire. A Plutarch, a Dio Chrysostom, or an Aelius Aristides would carry a petition to the provincial governor, or serve as ambassador to the emperor, but Arrian was one of the few of Greek ancestry in this period who himself served as a governor of a province.

In the first chapter of this book, therefore, I have tried to set out a general outline of Arrians life, with an emphasis on the evidence for his career in the service of the emperor. In succeeding chapters I examine his works, and where possible (chiefly in chapters 2 and 3) their relation to his experiences when he was writing them. By far the largest section of the book is devoted to an examination of the Anabasis. This work, certainly Arrians masterpiece, deserves a book of its own, but I hope in these two chapters to have provided a mode of looking at the Anabasis which gives some indication of the manner in which Arrian as author worked with the figure of Alexander which his sources had provided him. I have purposely avoided many of the problems treated by Alexander historians when I found them not directly related to the understanding of Arrian.

Much of the work for this volume was completed in 197475 while I held a senior fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities and was an honorary research fellow at Harvard University. Publication of this book has been supported by a grant from the Research Council of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I have been aided by a computer tape of the text of Arrian provided by Thesaurus Linguae Graecae and the Lex program of the Ibycus system in the Department of Classics at Chapel Hill. The good humor and careful typing of Erline Nipper, Shelley Pearl, Juanita Mason, and Nancy Honeycutt have made my job easier.

I am grateful to Ernst Badian, Herbert Bloch, George Houston, and Hugh Lloyd-Jones for reading draft chapters of this book and offering their criticism, as well as to C. P. Jones for his valuable comments and queries as reader for the Press. Finally, I thank my wife for her constant support and encouragement.

ARRIANS works and the abbreviations used for them are listed in . The extant works, except for those about Epictetus, are cited according to the edition of A. G. Roos, Flavii Arriani quae extant omnia: I, Alexandri Anabasis (Leipzig 1907) and II, Scripta Minora et Fragmenta (Leipzig 1928); reprinted with additions and corrections by G. Wirth (Leipzig 1968). The fragments of lost works are cited both by the number in Roos II and by the fragment in Felix Jacoby, Fragmente der griechischen Historiker II B (Berlin 19291930), no. 156. The fragments in Roos are numbered separately by work: B = Bithyniaca, P = Parthica, S = Events after Alexander, C = On the Nature, Composition, and Appearances of Comets. The fragments in Jacoby are numbered consecutively and identified by an F preceding the number. Thus the citation P1 = F30 refers to Parthica fragment 1 in Roos, which is the same as Arrian fragment 30 in Jacoby. Testimonia to the life of Arrian are collected by both Roos (vol. II, pp. LVIIILXV) and Jacoby. They are cited by T followed by the number and, if necessary, the name of the editor. The Epictetian works are cited from the edition by Henricus Schenkl, Epicteti Dissertationes ab Arriani Digestae2 (Leipzig 1916).