CLEITARCHUS, one of the historians of Alexander the Great, possibly a native of Egypt, or at least spent some time at the court of Ptolemy Lagus. Quintilian (Instit. x. i. 74) credits him with more ability than trustworthiness, and Cicero (Brutus, ii.) accuses him of giving a fictitious account of the death of Themistocles. But his history was popular, and much used by Diodorus Siculus, Quintus Curtius, Justin and Plutarch.
The fragments, some thirty in number, chiefly preserved in Aelian and Strabo, will be found in C. Miiller's Scriptores Rerum Alexandra Magni (in the Didot Arrian, 1846) ; monographs by C. Raun, De Clitarcho Diodori, Curtii, Justini auctore (i868), and F. Reuss, "Hellenistische Beitrage" in Rhein. Mus. lxiii. (1908), pp. 58-78.