The History of Alexander the Great and the Ephemerides of Alexander’s Expedition by C.A. Robinson (ISBN 0-89005-555-6) is a most precious source of information for whoever wants to dig further into the literature related to Alexander that has come to us through authors from antiquity.
This is by no means an easy, coherent reading, for it has taken me some adjustments to get a hold of the pattern that F. Jacoby established in his Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, edited in 1929 which Robinson translated into English.
Robinson starts by explaining that all we have about Alexander the Great are the stories told by “Extant Historians” like Arrian, Diodorus, Justin, Curtius, and Plutarch, followed by a great many “Fragments” from the Royal Journal kept by his court historian Callisthenes of Olynthus and later by his secretary Eumenes of Cardia. Also included are surviving parts from the books written by Alexander’s contemporaries like Ptolemy, Nearchus of Crete, Onesicritus of Astypalacea, and Archias of Pella as well as from many later Greek and Roman historians.
This book respects Jacoby’s scheme, including the numbering of the authors (which does not really make sense in Robinson’s book but probably does in Jacoby’s), the references to them, and how he splits the texts in “Testimonies” and “Fragments.” Once I got used to juggling around in this wealth of information, I found it terribly exciting to discover all those bits and pieces of history that I came across occasionally, not knowing if they were based on actual existing sources or if they were the simple imagination of some modern writer. Afterward, it is entirely understandable that these bits and pieces are not mentioned in the average book about Alexander simply because they don’t add much, if anything, to the story or would not fit in Alexander’s conquests proper.
Personally, I found Nearchus’ naval expedition along the coast of the Indian Ocean highly interesting and also the wide-ranged reports about Alexander’s death in Babylon, including the last days leading to his untimely death.
A handy Itinerary of Alexander is attached, showing names and places in a comparative table aiming to match many of the events and locations mentioned by Arrian, Diodorus, Justin, Curtius, and Plutarch, placing them in the same time frame. The names are not ranged alphabetically as one would expect but chronologically, meaning that you need to know enough about Alexander’s campaign to start your search.
And finally, there is an Appendix in which Robinson tries to make sense of the confusion about Alexander’s whereabouts in the winters of 330-329 and 329-328 BC and his crossing of the Hindu-Kush. I remember how difficult it was to match the accounts of Arrian and Plutarch during my trip through Central Asia, where in the end, I was not able to sort out these dates. It looks like Robinson made an instrumental analysis that is absolutely worthwhile reading.
This is by no means an easy, coherent reading, for it has taken me some adjustments to get a hold of the pattern that F. Jacoby established in his Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, edited in 1929 which Robinson translated into English.
Robinson starts by explaining that all we have about Alexander the Great are the stories told by “Extant Historians” like Arrian, Diodorus, Justin, Curtius, and Plutarch, followed by a great many “Fragments” from the Royal Journal kept by his court historian Callisthenes of Olynthus and later by his secretary Eumenes of Cardia. Also included are surviving parts from the books written by Alexander’s contemporaries like Ptolemy, Nearchus of Crete, Onesicritus of Astypalacea, and Archias of Pella as well as from many later Greek and Roman historians.
This book respects Jacoby’s scheme, including the numbering of the authors (which does not really make sense in Robinson’s book but probably does in Jacoby’s), the references to them, and how he splits the texts in “Testimonies” and “Fragments.” Once I got used to juggling around in this wealth of information, I found it terribly exciting to discover all those bits and pieces of history that I came across occasionally, not knowing if they were based on actual existing sources or if they were the simple imagination of some modern writer. Afterward, it is entirely understandable that these bits and pieces are not mentioned in the average book about Alexander simply because they don’t add much, if anything, to the story or would not fit in Alexander’s conquests proper.
Personally, I found Nearchus’ naval expedition along the coast of the Indian Ocean highly interesting and also the wide-ranged reports about Alexander’s death in Babylon, including the last days leading to his untimely death.
A handy Itinerary of Alexander is attached, showing names and places in a comparative table aiming to match many of the events and locations mentioned by Arrian, Diodorus, Justin, Curtius, and Plutarch, placing them in the same time frame. The names are not ranged alphabetically as one would expect but chronologically, meaning that you need to know enough about Alexander’s campaign to start your search.
And finally, there is an Appendix in which Robinson tries to make sense of the confusion about Alexander’s whereabouts in the winters of 330-329 and 329-328 BC and his crossing of the Hindu-Kush. I remember how difficult it was to match the accounts of Arrian and Plutarch during my trip through Central Asia, where in the end, I was not able to sort out these dates. It looks like Robinson made an instrumental analysis that is absolutely worthwhile reading.
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