ARRIAN, a valuable Greek historian, who flourished in the second century, under Adrian and the Antonines. He was born of an honourable family, at Nicomedia, a city of Bithynia, and is called by Dio, Flavius 4rrianus .Mcomediensis. In his own country he held the office. of priest of Ceres and Proserpine, which was never confer red but on per:,ons of distinction. Having removed to Rome, he soon recommended himself to Adrian, and was by him appointed prefect of Cappadocia. In this situa tion he carried on, with success, the war against the Alauni and Massagetx. Arrian was held in high es timation, both by his contemporaries, and by succeeding authors. Pliny the Younger, who was proconsul of Pontus and Bithynia, whilst Arrian governed the ad joining province of Bithynia, addressed seven of his epistles to him. Suidas informs us, that he attained even to the consular dignity, and that he was called ano ther Xenophon, on account of the sweetness of his stile. He resembled that elegant author also in other respects ; for he was a soldier as well as a scholar ; a successful student of philosophy as well as of polite literature : and as we owe to Xenophon the Menwrabilla of Socrates, so we are no less indebted to Arrian, for that most valuable piece of ancient morality, the Enchiridion of Epietetus. Lucian in his Pseudontantis, calls Arrian ayiv E V a man to be ranked with the most eminent of the Romans. He is mentioned by Arnobius towards the end of his second book ; and by Aulus Gellius, lib. xvii. 19. and lib. xix. 1.
Arrtan wrote many works, most of which have perished. He wrote the Bithynian and Alaunian history : An abridgment of the first is given by Photius ; and a frag ment of the latter many be seen in Blancard's edition of his works. He wrote also a history of the Parthians, in seventeen books ; the life of Dion the Syracusan ; and an account of the exploits of Timoleon, in Sicily. All these works are lost, except a few fragments preserved by Photius and Tzetzes.
But the work by which he is chiefly known to pos terity, is his excellent history of the " Expedition of Alexander the Great." This work is not less distin guished by candour and veracity, than by the elegance of stile, which would not disgrace the purest age of Grecian eloquence. Of the numberless ancient authors who recorded the exploits of Alexander the Great, Ar rian and Q. Curtius are the only two who remain : the latter is but very indifferent authority ; he is a rhetorician rather than a historian ; and is more anxious to record marvellous incidents, than to investigate historical truth : besides, his antiquity is questionable, and the sources from which he drew his information uncertain. Arrian.
on the other hand, is always most anxious to discover the truth, is seldom misled by the love of the marvellous. and divests, in a great measure, the history of Alexander of that supernatural aspect which it wears in the hand:, of other historians. Ile wrote " An account of the af fairs of India," which is generally considered only as a continuation of the history of Alexander's expedition, and is usually published along with it.
In this work we have an account of the voyage of Nearchus, which has been ably elucidated by Dr Vin cent. Arrian also wrote a Periplus of the Euxine Sca : but he does not appear to be entitled to much credit as a geographer ; for on one occasion he asserts, that there was a communication between the Caspian and the great eastern ocean which surrounded India. This is the more extraordinary, as the Caspian had been accu rately described by Herodotus and Aristotle many hun dred years before. There is also a Periplus of the Ery thrxan, or Red Sea, which is likewise ascribed to Ar rian : but-, Dr Vincent, who has also illus trated this work, the author is decidedly a different per son from Arrian of Nicomedia, to whom he was prior nearly a century. The author appears to have been an Alexandrian merchant, who, it is evident, sailed with the fleet from Egypt, as far as the gulph of Cambay. He has given, however, a very curious account of the commerce of the ancients. Arrian was the disciple of Epictetus ; and had he not been at pains to record the name and the maxims of his master, it is probable that neither the one nor the other would ever have been heard of.
Editions of Arrian's " Expedition of Alexander," were published at Venice, in Greek, 1535, 8vo ; at Basil, 1539, 8vo ; at Geneva, by H. Stephens, 1575, folio ; at Amsterdam, by Blancard, with notes, 1668, 8vo; at Leyden, by Gronovius, 1704, folio ; and at Amsterdam, with the notes of Raphelius, and others, 1757. The " Expedition of Alexander" was translated into Italian, by Leo of Modena, and printed at Venice, in 1554; into French by Claudius Vilart, 1581; and also by Ablan court. The best Latin translation is by Bonaventure Vul canius. There is an English translation by Rooke, printed at London, 1729. (v)