ALEXANDER POL'YHIS'TOR (Gk. IIo2v(c TOP, polyhisiGr, very learned). A fatuous his torian of the first century B.C., who was a native of Cottyacum, in Phrygia, but was edu cated at Miletns. In Sulfa's war against Stith ridates lie was taken captive and brought to Rome, where Cornelius Lentulus gave him his freedom. Sulla afterward granted him Roman citizenship. _Slexander gained the surname Poly histor because of the great number of his his torical works; but he also wrote on geography, grammar, science, rhetoric. and philosophy. All of his books have perished ; but they were ex tensively quoted by Pliny the Elder, Diogenes Laertius, and particularly Clement of Alexan dria and Eusebius. These excerpts show him to have been a rather poor compiler without marked literary ability or historical judgment. But he was evidently a great reader, and he perused Jew ish and Samaritan works as well as Greek au thors. Thus the world is indebted to Alexander for all extant information concerning such Jew ish writers as Philo, the epic poet ; Ezekiel, the tragedian; Eupolemns, the historian; Demetrius or Artapanns, the chronicler: Aristeas, the his torian. and such Samaritan writers as Theodotus
and Molon. The genuineness of these fragments has been thmbted by Ranch and Cruiee; but the defense by Mtiller, Freudenthal, and Schilrer is quite convincing. Alexander refers twice to the Bible. and gives from Berosus the story of the Deluge and possibly also the legend of the con fusion of tongues. The text of the fragments will be found in Eusebins, Praparalio Erangclira (London, 1842), Clement, ,tronutta, 1., 21, 130 (Oxford, 1860) :tMIhenc Pragmenta, iii., 211 and translated in I. R. Cory's Fragments (London, I 870)„J. Freudenthal, //c//cnistische Ntudien (Breslau, 1875), and K Schiirer's Geseltichte des jadischen l'olhes, 346 ( Leipzig, 1808), discuss excellently the question of their genuineness.