Note 82 — Chapter I · (continued 2)

The History of the Assyrians and Medes, which Eusebius (Préparation évangélique, 1, 12, and 41) attributes to the writer whom he calls Abydenus, dates perhaps from the period when the Roman Empire turned its attention to the basin of the Euphrates and attempted to regain possession of it. The few extant fragments of this author have been collected in Ch. Müller's Fragmenta Historicorum Græcorum, vol. iv. p. 279. We know nothing as to when he lived, but he wrote in the Ionian dialect, as did Arrian in his book on India, and it would seem difficult to put him later than the second century. It is probable that his undertaking belonged to that movement towards research which began in the reign of Augustus and was prolonged to the last years of the Antonines.