Documents for "Historians, Ancient: Biographies":

• Ammianus Marcellinus c.330-c.400, Roman historian, b. Antioch. After retiring from a successful military career, he wrote a history of the Roman Empire as a sequel to that of Tacitus, his model. The history, in 31...

• Appian fl. 2d cent., Roman historian. He was a Greek, born in Alexandria. He held various offices in Alexandria, was an advocate in Rome, and then imperial procurator in Egypt. His history of the Roman...

• Arrian (Flavius Arrianus) , fl. 2d cent. AD, Greek historian, philosopher, and general, b. Nicomedia in Bithynia. He was governor of Cappadocia under Emperor Hadrian and in AD 134 repulsed an invasion of the Alans. His chief...

• Berossus 3d cent. BC, Babylonian priest-historian; contemporary of Manetho. His work, in Greek, preserved Mesopotamian myths regarding creation and history. It survives in fragments quoted by Josephus and...

• Callisthenes c.360-c.327 BC, Greek historian of Olynthus; nephew of Aristotle. He accompanied Alexander the Great into Asia as the historian of the expedition. At first he compared Alexander to a god, but...

• Cassius Dio Cocceianus see Dio Cassius.

• Cornelius Nepos see Nepos, Cornelius.

• Ctesias fl. 400 BC, Greek historian and physician of Cnidus. He lived many years in the Persian court. He tended Artaxerxes II when he was wounded in the battle of Cunaxa (401 BC). In 398 he was sent by...

• Dares Phrygius supposed author of a history of the Trojan War. Dares of Phrygia is mentioned by Homer in the Iliad as a priest of Troy. During the Middle Ages he was widely regarded as the author of De excidio...

• Dexippus (Publius Herennius Dexippus) , fl. 253-276, Greek historian of the Roman period. He commanded Greek troops in an unsuccessful attempt to halt a Gothic invasion in 262. His works, much admired by Photius, included a universal...

• Dio Cassius (Cassius Dio Cocceianus) , c.155-235?, Roman historian and administrator, b. Nicaea in Bithynia. He was a grandson of Dio Chrysostom. His rise in civil and military office was steady; he became a senator (c.180), praetor...

• Diodorus Siculus d. after 21 BC, Sicilian historian. He wrote, in Greek, a world history in 40 books, ending with Caesar's Gallic Wars. Fully preserved are Books I-V and XI-XX, which cover Egyptian, Mesopotamian,...

• Dionysius of Halicarnassus fl. late 1st cent. BC, Greek rhetorician and historian. He taught at Rome and was one of the most celebrated of ancient critics. Among his extant works are On the Arrangement of Words, On Imitation,...

• Ephorus c.405-330 BC, Greek historian, b. Cyme in Aeolis; pupil of Isocrates. His chief work is a universal history, in 30 books, of which only fragments survive, arranged by subjects. He was widely...

• Eutropius fl. 4th cent. AD, Roman historian, a protégé of the emperors Julian and Valens. His Breviarium ab urbe condita (10 books) is a summary of Roman history.

• Gellius, Aulus fl. 2d cent., Roman writer. He was a lawyer who spent at least a year in Athens and wrote Noctes Atticae [Attic nights], a collection of discussions of law, antiquities, and sundry other subjects in 20 books (of which 19 and a fraction survive). The work is chiefly valuable as a storehouse of...

• Herodotus 484?-425? BC, Greek historian, called the Father of History, b. Halicarnassus, Asia Minor. Only scant knowledge of his life can be gleaned from his writings and from references to him by later...

• Jason of Cyrene 2d cent. BC, Jewish historian. He wrote a history of the Maccabean uprising, used as the basis of 2 Maccabees.

• Josephus, Flavius AD 37-c.AD 100, Jewish historian and soldier, b. Jerusalem. Josephus' historical works are among the most valuable sources for the study of early Judaism and early Christianity. Having studied the...

• Justus of Tiberia fl. 1st cent. AD, Jewish historian. Friendly to Rome, he opposed the Jewish war against the Romans and fled to Beirut where he became the private secretary of Agrippa II. He is mainly known for his...

• Livy (Titus Livius) , 59 BC-AD 17, Roman historian, b. Patavium (Padua), probably of noble family. He lived most of his life in Rome. The breadth of his education is apparent in his evident familiarity with the ancient...

• Manetho fl. 300 BC, Egyptian historian, a priest at Heliopolis, under Ptolemy I and Ptolemy II. His work, covering the history of Egypt from legendary times to 323 BC, is written in Greek and is known to...

• Nepos, Cornelius c.100 BC-c.25 BC, Roman historian. He was an intimate friend of Pomponius Atticus, Cicero, and Catullus. His only extant work is a collection of biographies, mostly from a lost larger work, De viris illustribus [on illustrious men]. The general method was to compare the lives of great Roman and non-Roman leaders. Nepos wrote in a popular manner in clear and simple Latin; his work was sometimes inaccurate,...

• Plutarch AD 46?-c.AD 120, Greek essayist and biographer, b. Chaeronea, Boeotia. He traveled in Egypt and Italy, visited Rome (where he lectured on philosophy) and Athens, and finally returned to his native...

• Polybius 203? BC-c.120 BC, Greek historian, b. Megalopolis. As one of the leaders of the Achaean League and a friend of Philopoemen , he was influential in Greek politics. Having advocated the neutral stand of the League in the war between Rome and Macedon, he was deported (167 BC) with a large number of Achaeans to Rome after...

• Sallust (Caius Sallustius Crispus) , 86 BC-c.34 BC, Roman historian. He was tribune of the people (52 BC) and praetor (46). He was ejected (50) from the senate ostensibly for adultery, but more probably because of his partisanship...

• Ssu-ma Ch'ien 145?-90? BC, Chinese historian; sometimes called the Father of Chinese History. He succeeded his father, Ssu-ma T'an, as grand historian (an office then dealing with astronomy and the calendar) at...

• Ssu-ma Kuang 1018-86, Chinese statesman and historian of the Northern Sung dynasty. He edited the monumental Tzu-chih t'ung-chien [the comprehensive mirror for aid in government], a chronicle of Chinese history from 403 BC to AD 959. The title indicates the belief that history can serve the present as a mirror of the past so...

• Tacitus (Cornelius Tacitus), c.AD 55-c.AD 117, Roman historian. Little is known for certain of his life. He was a friend of Pliny the Younger and married the daughter of Cnaeus Julius Agricola. In AD 97 he...

• Thucydides c.460-c.400 BC, Greek historian of Athens, one of the greatest of ancient historians. His family was partly Thracian. As a general in the Peloponnesian War he failed (424 BC) to prevent the surrender of the city of Amphipolis to the Spartan commander Brasidas and was exiled until the end of the war. He thus had opportunity to acquaint himself with...

• Timaeus c.356-c.260 BC, Greek historian of Tauromenium (now Taormina), Sicily. Son of the tyrant of the city, he was banished by Agathocles either in 317 or 312 BC and lived for 50 years in Athens, where...

• Trogus (Cnaeus Pompeius Trogus) , fl. AD 5, Roman historian of Gallic origin. His history of the world, which survives only in excerpts by Justin, dealt with Assyria, Persia, Greece, Macedon and the other Hellenistic kingdoms,...

• Xenophon c.430 BC-c.355 BC, Greek historian, b. Athens. He was one of the well-to-do young disciples of Socrates before leaving Athens to join the Greek force (the Ten Thousand) that was in the service of Cyrus the Younger of Persia. These troops served Cyrus at the disastrous battle of Cunaxa (401 BC). When Cyrus was killed, the Ten Thousand were forced to flee or surrender to the Persians. They retreated by fighting their way through an unknown and hostile land, harried by...