- Callisthenes
Callisthenes of Olynthus (in Greek polytonic|Καλλισθένης; ca. 360-328 BC) was a Greek
historian . He was the son ofHero andProxenus of Atarneus , which made him the great nephew ofAristotle by his sisterArimneste . They first met when Aristotle tutoredAlexander the Great . Through his great-uncle's influence, he was later appointed to attendAlexander the Great on his Asiatic expedition as a professional historian.During the first years of Alexander's campaign in Asia, Callisthenes showered praises upon the
Macedonia n conqueror. As the king and army penetrated further into Asia, however, Callisthenes' tone began to change. He began to sharply criticize Alexander's adoption of oriental customs, with special scorn for Alexander's growing desire that those who presented themselves before him perform the servile ceremony ofproskynesis . Having thereby greatly offended the king, Callisthenes was accused of being privy to a treasonable conspiracy and thrown into prison, where he died from torture or disease. His melancholic end was commemorated in a special treatise (Callisthenes or a Treatise on Grief) by his friendTheophrastus , whose acquaintance he made during a visit toAthens .Callisthenes wrote an account of Alexander's expedition up to the time of his own execution, a history of Greece from the
Peace of Antalcidas (387) to the Phocian war (357), a history of the Phocian war, and other works, all of which have perished. However, his account of Alexander's expedition was preserved long enough to be mined as a direct or indirect source for other histories that have survived.A quantity of the more legendary material coalesced into a text known as the "
Alexander Romance ", the basis of all the Alexander legends of the Middle Ages, originated during the time of the Ptolemies, but in its present form belongs to the 3rd century AD. Its author is usually known as pseudo-Callisthenes, although in the Latin translation byJulius Valerius Alexander Polemius (beginning of the 4th century) it is ascribed to a certain Aesopus; Aristotle, Antisthenes, Onesicritus andArrian have also been credited with the authorship.There are also Syrian, Armenian and Slavonic versions, in addition to four Greek versions (two in prose and two in verse) in the Middle Ages (see Krumbacher, "Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur", 1897, p. 849).
Valerius 's translation was completely superseded by that of Leo, arch-priest of Naples in the 10th century, the so-called "Historia de Preliis".References
Primary sources
*
Suda s.v.
* Diog. Laertius v. 1;
* Arrian, "Anab." iv. 10-14;
*Quintus Curtius viii. 5-8;
*Plutarch , "Alexander", 52-55;econdary sources
*
J. Zacher , "Pseudo-Callisthenes" (1867);
*W. Christ , "Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur" (1898), pp. 363, 819;
*Edward Meyer , article inErsch and Gruber's "Allgemeine Encyklopädie"; ,
*A. Ausfeld , "Zur Kritik des griechischen Alexanderromans" (Bruchsal, 1894);
*A. Westermann , "De Callisthene Olynthio et Pseudo-Callisthene Commentatio" (1838-1842);
*1911
* See "Scriptores rerum Alexandri Magni" (byC. W. Müller , in theDidot edition of Arrian, 1846), containing the genuine fragments and the text of the pseudo-CallisthenesExternal links
* [http://www.pothos.org/alexander.asp?paraID=29&keyword_id=9&title=Callisthenes Pothos.org: Callisthenes]
* [http://www.livius.org/caa-can/callisthenes/callisthenes.html Livius.org: Callisthenes of Olynthus]
* [http://www.livius.org/aj-al/alexander/alexander_z1b.html Livius.org: Alexander the Great: the 'good' sources - Official propaganda: Callisthenes]
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