The most valuable of the surviving histories of Alexander
the Great is Arrian's Anabasis and Indica. He relies mainly on one
of the contemporary sources: Ptolemy Lagos, founder of the mighty dynasty
of the Ptolemy in Egypt. Ptolemy's credibility is greatly enhanced because
it based his writting on the Ephemerides, or official daily log of
Alexander's army. Plutarch, was not a critical historian, but, as he himself
says, his purpose was to draw the moral lessons from the life of Alexander
and the other figures whose biographies he wrote. Plutarch leaves out a great
deal of military and other details.
Among the other surviving narratives of Alexander's career
we have: ARRIAN, Quintus Curtius RUFUS, DIODORUS, PLUTARCH, and JUSTIN. None
of the authors is contemporary with the events they describe. For us, the
earliest preserved source is Diodorus, who lived and wrote in the time of
Caesar and Augustus. Q. C. Rufus and Plutarch lived in the first century
AD., while Arrian lived in the second century AD, and had high military position
during Hadrian's reign. Justin had lived in the third century AD, but his
work is an extract and compilation of an earlier writer. There were vast
number of narratives or memoirs contemporary or near-contemporary with Alexander,
but none of them survived. (CALLISTHENES
, has written the official historiography of the campaign till 331 B.C.,
PTOLOMEI LAGOS, had written his memoirs,
ARISTOBULOS, architect and engineer had written his memoirs, NEARCHOS, admiral
of the fleet, has written his memoirs
CLITARCHOS, has written
the history of ALEXANDER in 12 volumes )
- Q. C. Rufus, Justin, and in some scale Diodorus and
Plutarch are representatives of what is often called the Vulgate (Popular
narrative tradition). Curtius is its most colorful author of Vulgate tradition.
The vulgate's main value is that, where Arrian's text depends on biased sources
describing Alexander in non critical manner, it portrays him often loosing
self-control, hard drinking, etc.. It is interesting that for some episodes
the vulgate is more adequate than Arrian, but its descriptions have to be
weighed carefully, while it is simply not correct to rely on one author and
ignore the other sources.