Arrian - H. F. Pelham (essay date 1896)
H. F. Pelham (essay date 1896)
SOURCE: “Arrian as Legate of Cappadocia,” in The English Historical Review, Vol. XLIV, October, 1896, pp. 625-40.
[In the essay below, Pelham surveys Arrian's works, noting ways in which Arrian's military experience informed his writings.]
That Arrian, the historian of Alexander the Great and the disciple of Epictetus, was also for a time governor of the important frontier province of Cappadocia is a fact which, though long known as well established, has received much less attention than it deserves. Yet it is remarkable enough that a Greek philosopher and man of letters should have been entrusted by a Roman emperor with a first-rate military command. It was, indeed, no uncommon thing, in the second century a.d., for Greeks to find admission into the Roman senate, and to be decorated with a consulship. More rarely a distinguished Greek was given some administrative post in a peaceful province, such as...
[The entire page is 7685 words long]
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