56 



BIOGEAPHICAL NOTICE 



a great portion of his time to philosophical and historical re- 

 search. But it is not my intention to enlarge on his literary 

 character in general, nor to enter in detail into the merits of 

 his several compositions. 



His principal historical work, '* The Anabasis of Alexander, 

 though composed," says Dr. Robertson, " long after Greece had 

 lost its liberty, and in an age when genius and taste were on 

 the decline, is not unworthy the purest times of Attic lite- 

 rature." And his " Indian history is one of the most curious 

 treatises transmitted to us from antiquity." The latter may be 

 considered an episode to the former. It is partly historical 

 and partly geographical, and will be found to contain a fund 

 of entertainment. 



On the model of the Socratic Xenophon, he committed to 

 writing the dictates of Epictetus, during the philosopher's life- 

 time, and published them as his dissertations : — ^ subsequently 

 compiling his Enchiridion or manual — a brief compendium of 

 all the principles of his master, and acknowledged to be one 

 of the most valuable and beautiful pieces of morality extant. 



His Periplus of the Euxine, in the form of a letter from its 

 author to the Emperor, contains an accurate topographical 

 survey of the coast of that sea, 



Oppian. Hall- iraaris yXvKepumpos afjL(piTpirr]s 



eut. I. vs. 600. , 



KOAirOS, 



from the commencement of his voyage at Trapezus, within his 

 own prefecture of Cappadocia, to its completion at Byzantium ; 

 and was written probably while he held his office of command 

 in the province, a short time before the breaking out of the 



1. Aulus Gellius particularly authenticates his literary connexion with Epictetus, 

 where he alludes (Noct. Attic. L. xix. c. i.) to the latter's SfoAe^ejs " ab Aniano 

 digestas,'' &:c. 



