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Updated: June 9, 2025
A higher authority than either Arrian or Raleigh may now be referred to by those who wish to know the real merit of Alexander as a general, and how far the commonplace assertions are true that his successes were the mere results of fortunate rashness and unreasoning pugnacity.
While passing through Egypt on his travels, or while living there and holding some post under the prefect, the historian Arrian has left us his name and a few lines of poetry carved on the foot of the great sphinx near the pyramids.
The ancient opinion of Herodotus, that the Caspian was a sea by itself, unconnected with any other, which was overlooked or disbelieved by Strabo, Arrian, &c. was adopted by Ptolemy, but he erroneously describes it as if its greatest length was from east to west.
The garrison which he reviewed at the mouth of the Phasis consisted of four hundred chosen legionaries; the brick walls and towers, the double ditch, and the military engines on the rampart, rendered this place inaccessible to the Barbarians: but the new suburbs which had been built by the merchants and veterans, required, in the opinion of Arrian, some external defence.
Arrian indeed thought that the difficulty of carrying water in their small ships, with large crews of rowers, was alone great enough to stop a voyage of such a length along a desert coast that could not supply them with fresh water.
It is unique in design, totally different from all the other royal sepulchres; and, though it has been often described, demands, and must receive, notice in any account that is given of the ancient Persian constructions. The historian Arrian calls it "a house upon a pedestal;" and this brief description exactly expresses its general character.
Arrian tells us of republics in India, still supposed to exist by modern investigators; but they are not more productive of liberty of thought, or ferment of intellect, than the principalities. In Italy there were commonwealths as liberal as the Republic of Florence; but they did not produce a Machiavelli or a Dante.
Epictetus taught in the time of Domitian, and though he did not leave any written treatises, his doctrines were preserved and handed down by his disciple Arrian, who had for him the reverence that Plato had for Socrates.
After having been unduly admired as an historian, Mitford is now unduly neglected. His great antagonist came on across the Euphrates against him, at the head of an army which Arrian, copying from the journals of Macedonian officers, states to have consisted of forty thousand foot, and seven thousand horse.
Hence the nut to crack: Given 'Arry, by what rapid process of discipline can he be prepared for a state in which the 'Arrian characteristics will surely prove ruinous not only to himself but to all with whom he has dealings?
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