Note 518 — Chapter XCIV · MILITARY OPERATIONS AND CONQUESTS OF ALEXANDER, AFTER HIS WINTER-QUARTERS IN PERSIS, DOWN TO HIS DEATH AT BABYLON.

Arrian, iv. 10, 2; Plutarch, Alex. 53, 54. It is remarkable that Timmæus denounced Kallisthenes as having in his historical work flattered Alexander to excess (Polybius, xii. 12). Kallisthenes seems to have recognized various special interpositions of the gods, to aid Alexander’s successes—see Fragments 25 and 36 of the Fragmenta Callisthenis in the edition of Didot.

In reading the censure which Arrian passes on the arrogant pretensions of Kallisthenes, we ought at the same time to read the pretensions raised by Arrian on his own behalf as an historian (i. 12, 7-9)—καὶ ἐπὶ τῷδε οὐκ ἀπαξιῶ ἐμαυτὸν τῶν πρώτων ἐν τῇ φωνῇ τῇ Ἑλλάδι, εἴπερ καὶ Ἀλέξανδρος τῶν ἐν τοῖς ὅπλοις, etc. I doubt much whether Kallisthenes pitched his self-estimation so high. In this chapter, Arrian recounts, that Alexander envied Achilles for having been fortunate enough to obtain such a poet as Homer for panegyrist; and Arrian laments that Alexander had not, as yet, found an historian equal to his deserts. This, in point of fact, is a reassertion of the same truth which Kallisthenes stands condemned for asserting—that the fame even of the greatest warrior depends upon his commemorators. The boastfulness of a poet is at least pardonable, when he exclaims, like Theokritus, Idyll. xvi. 73—