The moral interpretation of the ‘second preface’ to Arrian's Anabasis

Abstract

Arrian's Anabasis is distinguished by two prefaces. The first takes the form of an introduction explaining his use of previous historians. The second takes the form of a digression after Alexander has crossed the Hellespont. It asserts the need for an historian worthy of Alexander's achievements and proclaims Arrian's own worthiness for that position, dismissing previous historians (i 12.2–5). Alexander did not find his Homer as Achilles did, choral poets did not write for him as they wrote for the tyrants of old Greece, and Xenophon made even the inferior exploits of the Ten Thousand better known than his. Yet no man had achieved so much before.