Arrian and Alexander Worship

The most problematic, but also useful, ancient source I have come across so far in my studies is The Landmark Arrian: The Campaigns of Alexander. This work was written by Arrian of Nicomedia, a Greek who lived in the first and second centuries CE. He was a historian, public servant, philosopher and military commander. His family were wealthy Greeks, but his full name “Lucius Flavius Arrianus” implies he was a Roman citizen, and he was at one-point consul. The work is one of the few accounts we have of the campaigns of Alexander the Great of Macedon, and clearly relies heavily on works that are no longer extant today such as Xenophon’s account of the March of Cyrus. Everything we know of the author is from Bibliotheca, and references within his own works. The reliability of these sources and fragments in piecing together information about the author is problematic.

The Anabasis details the expeditions of Alexander the Great through Persia and the expansion of his empire. It is majorly a systematic military account, and does not speculate on the personal life of Alexander much. There is also little comment on the politics of the time or the socio-cultural context for the beginning of the Persian wars. The seven books are written in Attic Greek, in the second century CE. It accounts the life of Alexander III who died in 323 BCE, which means that this work was written hundreds of years after the Persian Wars. This gap in time is often cause for skepticism in ancient sources, because he is writing about a time he was not present for, and is basing his works on the biases of previous authors.

Some of the sources Arrian cites are: Ptolemy son of Lagos, Aristobulos (both men who presumably were with Alexander on the campaigns), Diodotus of Erythrae, Eumenes of Cardia, Nearchus of Crete, Megasthenes, Eratosthenes, Aristus and the letters of Alexander. These sources are no longer extant and we must rely on Arrian’s interpretation of them, leaving us in the dark. Arrian is our only extant full account of the expeditions of Alexander, thus we are reliant on his opinion, and the fragments of primary sources we get through him. This is problematic, as it would be comparable to using a modern author as our only reliable evidence of ancient times – we have no guarantee of the accuracy of the representation.

Arrian disapproved of the work of his predecessor, Callisthenes, as he believed that the author was biased in his representation of Alexander, and was more interested in propaganda for Alexander than accuracy. I find this an almost hypocritical assumption of Arrian, as he is also known for his beneficial portrayal of Alexander and he tends to gloss over any negative qualities of Alexander. After Alexander flies into a rage and kills his best friend, Arrian basically says that it is okay because Alexander felt bad about it, and was drunk. This is a weak excuse. He also spends the beginning of his work arguing that his portrayal will be the most unbiased and truthful (blatant self-promotion), and then glosses over many of the negative aspects of Alexander’s character, and is obvious in his worship-like admiration of Alexander.

The account is also quite analytical, and rarely discusses the personal motivations of Alexander, or the social and cultural contexts for what is happening. We are reliant on Arrian as a source, but we must read his work with a critical mind of his bias towards Alexander, the overconfidence in his own work, and the reliability of his information. This source is useful as he likely had access to resources that are no longer extant, and it is by far the most complete work on the campaigns of Alexander, but the fact that it is our only comprehensive source on Alexander’s campaigns leaves us limited in our understanding, and at the mercy of the information we are given.

In conclusion, we are forced to use Arrian as a source for one of the most important figures of the Hellenistic period as he is the most fleshed out and comprehensive source. His work is problematic due to the date he has written it, our inability to verify his sources, his obvious biases that may have caused selection of the truths he discusses, and the lack of discussion of the social contexts and motivations behind the Persian Wars.