Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Returning to our sources to look at *their* sources, with a very specific example (Ptolemy Soter, first Ptolemaic King), and two rather different assessments of his reliability, first in Arrian, then in Curtius. Also a brief review of those two historians and their own changing perceptions from the 20th century into the 21st.
(Minor correction, I accidentally said 69 BCE for Vespasian's ascent and didn't catch it; I obviously meant CE. Also, since I couldn't exactly remember, I looked it up later and Claudius became emperor in 41 CE).
Ancient authors mentioned:
Arrian of Nikomedia, Quintius Curtius Rufus, Diodorus Siculus, Plutarch of Chaironeia, also Justin, and Athenaeus, specifically his Supper Party or "Learned Banqueters" (Deipnosophystai). Lost authors, Kleitarchos and Ptolemy (and by mention in Curtius, Timagenes).
Modern historians mentioned:
Ernst Badian, "The Eunuch Bagoas," Classical Quarterly 8.3-4: 144-57
Elizabeth Baynham, ALEXANDER THE GREAT: THE UNIQUE HISTORY OF QUINTUS CURTIUS, 1998, U. Michigan Press
A. B. (Brian) Bosworth, FROM ARRIAN TO ALEXANDER, 1988, Oxford UP
Translators:
Arrian: Pamela Mensch (The Landmark Arrian)
Curtius: John Yardley (Penguin Classics)
Returning to our sources to look at *their* sources, with a very specific example (Ptolemy Soter, first Ptolemaic King), and two rather different assessments of his reliability, first in Arrian, then in Curtius. Also a brief review of those two historians and their own changing perceptions from the 20th century into the 21st.
(Minor correction, I accidentally said 69 BCE for Vespasian's ascent and didn't catch it; I obviously meant CE. Also, since I couldn't exactly remember, I looked it up later and Claudius became emperor in 41 CE).
Ancient authors mentioned:
Arrian of Nikomedia, Quintius Curtius Rufus, Diodorus Siculus, Plutarch of Chaironeia, also Justin, and Athenaeus, specifically his Supper Party or "Learned Banqueters" (Deipnosophystai). Lost authors, Kleitarchos and Ptolemy (and by mention in Curtius, Timagenes).
Modern historians mentioned:
Ernst Badian, "The Eunuch Bagoas," Classical Quarterly 8.3-4: 144-57
Elizabeth Baynham, ALEXANDER THE GREAT: THE UNIQUE HISTORY OF QUINTUS CURTIUS, 1998, U. Michigan Press
A. B. (Brian) Bosworth, FROM ARRIAN TO ALEXANDER, 1988, Oxford UP
Translators:
Arrian: Pamela Mensch (The Landmark Arrian)
Curtius: John Yardley (Penguin Classics)
