[Sidenote: Luciani Alexander seu Pseudomantis.]
Ἀνὴρ Ῥωμαίων ἐν τοῖς πρώτοις, καὶ παιδείᾳ παρ’ ὄλον τὸν βίον συγγενόμενος.
Mr. Addison has remarked, that “a reader seldom peruses a book with
pleasure till he knows whether the writer of it be a black or a fair
man, of a mild or a choleric disposition, married, or a bachelor,
with other particulars of the like nature, that conduce very much to
the right understanding of an author.” If, however, the satisfaction
of perusing the Cynegeticus of Arrian be dependent on a previous
acquaintance with these personal particulars of their author, I fear
the modern reader will regret the insufficiency of the following
biographical notice. Scanty as it is, it contains all the information I
have been able to collect relative to the younger Xenophon.[27]
[Sidenote: Arriani Bithynica et Parthica apud Photii Eclogas.]
Flavius Arrianus[28] was a citizen both of Athens and Rome, of Grecian
extraction, and born probably in the reign of Domitian, at Nicomedia,
a celebrated city of Bithynia; where, according to Photius on the
authority of our author’s “Bithynica,” a lost work on the subject of
his native country, he was priest of Ceres and Proserpine, to whom
the city of Nicomedia was sacred. His fondness for polite literature,
and celebrity for philosophical knowledge, acquired him the honour
of the twofold citizenship. But, though a friend and disciple of
Epictetus, and the first recorder of his Stoical Apophthegms—φιλόσοφος
μὲν ἐπιστήμην, εἷς τῶν ὁμιλητῶν Ἐπικτήτου, he appears, like the elder
Xenophon, to have been much engaged in military affairs; and as Roman
prefect of Cappadocia, in the reign of Hadrian, to have taken an active
part in the war against the Alani and Massagetæ, a people bred to
eternal warfare—
[Sidenote: Lucan. Pharsal. L. +viii.+]
duros æterni Martis Alanos.
[Sidenote: Dion. Cassii Hist. Roman. L. +lxix.+]
It is related by Dion Cassius, and the epitomizer Xiphilin, that
the Scythian barbarians under Pharasmanes having committed great
havock and spoil in Media, (A.D. 136.) had begun to threaten Armenia
and Cappadocia; but finding Flavius Arrianus, the prefect of the
latter province, better prepared for their reception than they had
anticipated, they were induced, partly by the bribes of Vologæsus, and
partly through fear of the governor, to retire from the territory under
his jurisdiction.
Suidas, on the authority of Heliconius, states that Arrian was advanced
to the senatorial and consular dignities, and that he was denominated
“the second Xenophon” from the sweetness of his literary style. And
Photius also, in his “Eclogæ,” speaking of our author’s “Parthica”
observes, ἐπωνόμαζον αὐτὸν Ξενοφῶντα νέον· διὰ δὲ τὸ παιδείας ἐπίσημον,
ἄλλας τε πολιτικὰς ἀρχὰς ἐπιστεύθη, καὶ εἰς τὸ τῶν ὑπάτων ἀνέβη τέλος:
and again he adds, δῆλον δὲ ὡς οὐδὲ ῥητορικῆς σοφίας τε καὶ δυνάμεως
ἀπελείπετο.
Like his namesake, as I have remarked, he united the character of a
man of letters with that of a warrior, dedicating a great portion of
his time to philosophical and historical research. But it is not my
intention to enlarge on his literary character in general, nor to enter
in detail into the merits of his several compositions.
His principal historical work, “The Anabasis of Alexander, though
composed,” says Dr. Robertson, “long after Greece had lost its liberty,
and in an age when genius and taste were on the decline, is not
unworthy the purest times of Attic literature.” And his “Indian history
is one of the most curious treatises transmitted to us from antiquity.”
The latter may be considered an episode to the former. It is partly
historical and partly geographical, and will be found to contain a fund
of entertainment.
On the model of the Socratic Xenophon, he committed to writing the
dictates of Epictetus, during the philosopher’s lifetime, and published
them as his dissertations:—[29]subsequently compiling his Enchiridion
or manual—a brief compendium of all the principles of his master, and
acknowledged to be one of the most valuable and beautiful pieces of
morality extant.
His Periplus of the Euxine, in the form of a letter from its author to
the Emperor, contains an accurate topographical survey of the coast of
that sea,
[Sidenote: Oppian. Halieut. +i.+ vs. 600.]
πάσης γλυκερώτερος ἀμφιτρίτης
κόλπος,
[Sidenote: Eutropii L. +viii.+]
from the commencement of his voyage at Trapezus, within his own
prefecture of Cappadocia, to its completion at Byzantium; and was
written probably while he held his office of command in the province,
a short time before the breaking out of the war against the Alani.
Many learned men, as Ramusius, Ortelius, and others, have doubted
whether he wrote the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, which sometimes
passes under his name; indeed the late Dean of Westminster says
positively “it is not the work of Arrian of Nicomedia:” but his claim
to the Circumnavigation of the Euxine has never been disputed. It was
compiled expressly for the Emperor; who, according to Spartian and Dion
Cassius, was particularly attached to geographical research, and had
visited in person a large portion of his extensive dominions—“orbem
Romanorum circumivit.” The elder Xenophon is spoken of, sub initio,
by our scientific geographer, in the same relative terms, as in the
Cynegeticus, ὡς λέγει ὁ Ξενοφῶν ἐκεῖνος, and it is fair to infer that
the Periplus and Cynegeticus are the works of the same individual.
[Sidenote: Arriani Tactica. Sub fine.]
In his Tactics, written, as he states himself, in the 20th year of the
reign of Hadrian, there is a brief account of former writers on this
subject, and a description of the order and arrangement of an army
in general: but in the “Acies contra Alanos,” a short and imperfect
fragment annexed thereto, the particular instructions,[30] which were
delivered by him as general, for the march of the Roman army against
the northern barbarians, are minutely given.
[Sidenote: Photii Eclogæ de Rebus post Alexandr. gestis.]
Fragments of other historical works, supposed to have been written
by him, are preserved by the learned and indefatigable patriarch of
Constantinople—“The History of Events subsequent to Alexander’s Death,
in 10 books,” “The Parthica, in 17 books,” and “Bithynica, in 8 books.”
Under the review of the first of which works, the Byzantine has left us
his opinion of Arrian as an historiographer, and of the style of his
compositions: ἀνὴρ οὐδενὸς τῶν ἄριστα συνταξαμένων ἱστορίας δεύτερος,
κ. τ. λ.
[Sidenote: Eutropii L. +viii.+]
Of the Libellus de Venatione, the treatise on Coursing, I have already
made mention; and shall merely add, what is in some degree pertinent
to the subject, that there seems to have been a strong similarity of
taste between Hadrian and our author. The Emperor, like his prefect,
was not only intimately conversant with Greek and Latin literature,
“facundissimus Latino sermone, Græco eruditissimus,” but also
passionately fond of the chase. While living in his native town of
Italica in Spain, Spartian tells us, he bore the title of Græculus, and
was, at the same time, “venandi usque ad reprehensionem studiosus—equos
et canes sic amavit, ut eis sepulchra constitueret.” To such a height
did he carry this regard, that, according to Xiphilin, he graced a
monument to the memory of his beloved hunter Borysthenes, with an
inscription written by his own pen:
Borysthenes Alanus
Cæsareus Veredus, &c.
[Sidenote: De Remediis U. F. L. +i+. D. +xxxii.+]
For all which unbounded affection for the brute creation, the reader
may remember, he incurs the severity of Petrarch’s satire in the
dialogue “de Venatu et Aucupio.”
Whether the similarity of Arrian’s rural diversions to those of Hadrian
in early life, co-operated with other causes to his elevation by so
capricious and eccentric a patron, must ever remain doubtful. He is not
mentioned by name in the biography of Hadrian by Spartian: where it is
stated, in general terms only, of this singular Emperor, that he was
on terms of familiar intimacy with Epictetus, Heliodorus, and _all_
grammarians, rhetoricians, &c. Of his acquaintance with the eminent men
of his capital there can be no doubt, and his roving disposition must
have introduced such to his notice in the colonies and more distant
parts of the empire. One, therefore, who had been following the same
pursuits with himself from his youth upwards, a sportsman, a military
tactician, and a joint friend of Epictetus, was not likely to escape
him. Besides, we are assured that he was, on all occasions, sociable
in his field amusements, “venationem semper cum amicis participavit;”
and therefore we may suppose that the literary founder of Adrianotheræ
would gladly avail himself of the earliest opportunity of adding to his
personal friends and sporting associates the most accomplished writer
and courser of his day. We know how much the pleasure of intercourse is
enhanced by identity of pursuit; and how strong the hold which innocent
amusements, shared with congenial friends, have on our affections!
[Sidenote: Oppian. Cyneg. +ii.+ vs. 32.]
οὐ γάρ τις κέντροισι δαμεὶς ἄγρης ἐρατεινῆς
αὖτις ἑκὼν λείψειεν, ἔχει δέ μιν ἄσπετα δεσμά.
[Sidenote: De Venat. c. +i.+]
[Sidenote: Ejusdem c. +v.+]
As to the period of his life at which Arrian may be supposed to have
written the Cynegeticus, the inference to be drawn from the meagre
paragraph of autobiography in the first chapter, wherein he states
his fitness to supply the deficiencies of the elder Xenophon’s work,
from having been ἀμφὶ ταὐτὰ ἀπὸ νέου ἐσπουδακὼς, κυνηγέσια καὶ
στρατηγίαν καὶ σοφίαν, although it establishes the fact of his early
predilection for field sports, yet it rather militates against the
idea of the Cynegeticus having been written at a very early period of
the author’s life. However, be this as it may, his patronage of “_the
long dogs_” continued at the time of his writing this libellus; and
his beloved Ὁρμὴ, ὠκυτάτη, καὶ σοφωτάτη, καὶ ἱεροτάτη, was then in his
possession, living seemingly in the closest intimacy with his attached
and philosophic master, and sharing with Megillus his society at home
and abroad, the well-earned recompense in declining years of the
excellence he had manifested in the vigour of his youthful days on the
coursing plain; where, in Arrian’s own words of eulogy, τέτταρσιν ἤδη
ποτὲ λαγωοῖς ἐφ’ ἡλικίας ἀντήρκησεν.[31]
[Sidenote: Arrian. de Exped. Alexand. L. +i.+ c. +xii.+ Vide Raphelii
annotat. in loc.]
Antiquity is almost silent relative to the personal history of the
younger Xenophon;[32] and as an autobiographer, he seems to have
been desirous that nothing should be known of himself or family; but
rather that his personal history should be darkened under the doubtful
celebrity of anonymous authorship, or merged in the somewhat arrogant
assumption of a fictitious and equivocal title. In the conclusion
of the 12th chapter of the 1st book of his History of Alexander’s
Anabasis, he says that the number and magnitude of the exploits of the
son of Philip, were his inducement to record them, not deeming himself
altogether unworthy to transmit them to posterity. “But who I am,” he
continues, “that thus characterise myself, and what my name, (though
far from obscure,) it concerns the reader but little to know. Neither
would an account of my family, my city, nor such offices as I have
there borne, be of any use to him. Be it sufficient for him to know,
that an ardent love of literature, in which I have constantly indulged
myself from youth, has been with me instead of family connexion, and
civic and magisterial honours. Wherefore I may perhaps be little less
worthy of a place among the most celebrated authors of Greece, than
Alexander among her most illustrious heroes.”
[Sidenote: Phot. Eclog. Arrian. Parthica.]
After the brief sketch which I have given of the writings of the
younger Xenophon, it must strike every one that he was influenced in
the choice of his subjects as an author, by a recollection of what had
engaged the literary attention of his celebrated namesake; and that
while writing under the same personal appellative, he probably proposed
to imitate the matter and style of composition of his prototype—ἰσχνὸς
τὴν φράσιν, καὶ μιμητὴς ὡς ἀληθῶς Ξενοφῶντος.
Under this view of his works we have the dissertations of Epictetus
from the pen of his most renowned follower, the Bithynian Xenophon,
and the Memorabilia of Socrates from that of the son of Gryllus, the
most eminent disciple of the Socratic school: the Anabasis of Alexander
for that of Cyrus, with the same distribution of the work into seven
books, and the same title. The Hellenica of Xenophon gave birth to the
Parthica and Bithynica of Arrian: and in imitation of the Essay on
Hunting, our pseudo-Xenophon has left us his Observations on Coursing.
Upon their general similarity of character in active life I have
already remarked, and shall only observe farther, that, as far as we
can judge from the scanty personal anecdotes which have survived of
the younger, for comparison with those of the elder philosopher, this
similarity appears to have extended to the frame and composition of
their minds. Many of the same excellencies, and respectable weaknesses
of character, co-existed in both; the same patient and unerring
virtue—the same kind and generous feeling—the same credulous and
enthusiastic regard to celestial admonitions—πειθομένους τεράεσσι
θεῶν—with a proportionate degree of the purest heathen piety.
[Sidenote: De Expedit. Alexandri L. +vii.+ c. +xxx.+]
If it be stigmatised with the title of superstitious credulity in the
priest of Ceres, that he supposed himself led by divine inspiration
to write the history of a man, οὐδενὶ ἄλλῳ ἀνθρώπων ἐοικὼς, I would
plead his enthusiastic admiration of his hero in palliation of the
fond supposition, qualified as it is, with equal good sense and piety,
in the concluding sentences of the Anabasis; where he states that as
so extraordinary a person as Alexander could not have risen up in
the world without divine interference—οὐδ’ ἔξω τοῦ θείου; so, with
admiration of his good qualities, and reprobation of his bad ones, with
a strict regard to truth, and public utility, he professes himself
his historian, writing, as he verily believes, under the same divine
influence that first gave being to the subject of his memoir.
Surely such a belief in heavenly interference, exciting its professor
to what is just and honourable, and deterring him from every breach of
propriety, as an historian of truth, must be applauded by every fair
and impartial judge of human character; and more particularly so, when
in the person of a Stoic, unenlightened by any philosophy but that of
Epictetus, it could have no other foundation than innate rectitude of
mind.
Under the conviction that Arrian’s expectation of posthumous fame has
been realized in general, and that my brethren of the leash will award
him particular honour as the first writer of a Courser’s Manual, I
conclude this brief sketch of his life and literary labours; which
might have been more full, if his biography by Dion Cassius had come
down to us.
As the compiler of the Stoical philosophy of “the Phrygian Slave,” the
historian of the son of Philip,[33] the hydrographer of the Euxine,
a military tactician, a warrior-prefect, and a classic courser, he
has left works behind him which will endure as long as literature
itself;—he has done all in his power to benefit and instruct mankind in
various departments of human learning;—has contributed his mite to the
advancement of rational science and healthful recreation, and proved
himself worthy of the immortality he so fondly anticipated.
[Illustration: LA CHAUSSE.]
[Illustration: MAFFEI]
[Illustration: ΚΥΘΝ]