Notes on Aristobulus of Cassandria1

P. A. Brunt

doi:10.1017/S000983880003024X

Notes on Aristobulus of Cassandria1

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009

P. A. Brunt

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In the preface to the Anabasis Arrian explains his reliance on Aristobulus (as well as Ptolemy) because he took part in Alexander's campaigns and yet wrote after Alexander's death, when he was under no constraint or hope of gain that might lead him to distort the truth. It is in fact clear from 7. 18. 5 that Aristobulus was still writing his history after the battle of Ipsus in 301. According to Ps.-Lucian, Macrobioi 22, he stated at the beginning of his work that he was already in his eighty-fourth year; since numbers are easily subject to copying errors, it may be that the author of the Macrobioi was himself deceived by a manuscript corruption, and in any case, as the date of Aristobulus' birth is unknown, this testimony casts little light on the date of the history.

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Type: Research Article
Information: The Classical Quarterly , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , May 1974, pp. 65 - 69
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S000983880003024X [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Classical Association 1974

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References

^{page 65 note 2} Eratosthenes ap Arrian, Anab. 5. 3, and Strabo C 505 f., 508, 688, 813.

^{page 65 note 3} Lucian, How to write history, 12 and 40, applies the term to historians whose aim is to please someone living.

^{page 65 note 4} Walz, Rhetores Gr. 610 (Jacoby T. 5).

^{page 65 note 5} In his edition, Prolegomenon Sylloge, pp. xix, cxvi; henceforth Rabe.

^{page 66 note 1} e.g. Walz vii. 24 f. = Rabe 199, where only Aristogiton and Demades are named as masters of the two species. Cf. below, n. 6.

^{page 66 note 2} Rh. Mus. lxii (1907), 260 f. Evagoras: R.E. 829 f. (no. I3).Google Scholar

^{page 66 note 3} Rabe, , no. 4 at p. 38. The same work is printed by Walz in vol. viGoogle Scholar and ascribed to Doxapatres, John; see p. 25 for the relevant text. (Walz did not apparently know that one manuscript read ‘Aristobulus’ here, and prints ‘Aristodemus’.)Google Scholar

^{page 66 note 4} Rabe, , p. xxxiv.Google Scholar

^{page 66 note 5} Kirchner, P.A. 6290, omitted in R.E.

^{page 66 note 6} Ed. Rabe, , 3. For Pytheas cf. R.E. xxiv. 366 ff.Google Scholar

^{page 66 note 7} R.E., ii 923; Cic. de rep. 4. 13.Google Scholar

^{page 66 note 8} It may be significant that in Walz v. 214 (Maximus Planudes) and vii. 14 (n. I above) only the names of Aristogiton and Demades survive.

^{page 67 note 1} … (F. 12 Jacoby). For Menander R.E., xv. 762 (Radermacher).Google Scholar

^{page 67 note 2} R.E. xiii. 2472 f.; Lynceus was much used by Athenaeus, who also cites Chares nine times, sometimes verbatim and at length; he has four other citations from Aristobulus, perhaps at second hand; of these one other (F. 47) seems to me dubious: see below.

^{page 67 note 3} (sc. Callisthenes) Cf. Plut. 454 E Clearly in each passage must be understood before . Plutarch twice gives the story without naming a source; it was presumably well known, and the huge cup seems to have been famous and an illustration of Alexander's hard drinking practice .