Arrian of Nicomedia

Life and Career

Arrian of Nicomedia (Lucius Flavius Arrianus) was born around 86 CE in Nicomedia, in the Roman province of Bithynia. He belonged to the Greek provincial elite and obtained Roman citizenship, as indicated by his tria nomina. Little is known of his family, but his education followed the pattern of a wealthy Greek under the Roman Empire: training in rhetoric, philosophy, and classical literature.

Early in life Arrian went to Nicopolis in Epirus to study under the Stoic philosopher Epictetus. This period, probably in the early second century CE, was decisive for his intellectual formation. Ancient testimonies report that Arrian took extensive notes while Epictetus taught; these notes later formed the basis for the Discourses and the Encheiridion (Handbook).

Arrian entered Roman public service during the height of the High Empire. Under Emperor Hadrian, he rose to prominent positions: he served as consul suffectus (a replacement consul) and later as governor (legatus Augusti) of Cappadocia, a strategically important frontier province facing the Parthian Empire. In this role he commanded Roman forces and authored the Ektaxis kata Alanon (Order of Battle against the Alans), a description of a defensive campaign that illustrates his military experience.

After his provincial commands Arrian appears to have retired from high office, devoting himself largely to literary work, mainly in Athens and perhaps partly in his native Bithynia. He was granted Athenian citizenship and is sometimes styled an Athenian in the manuscripts. He likely died around 160 CE, though both the exact date and place of death remain uncertain.

Works and Intellectual Profile

Arrian was a prolific author, though only a portion of his writings survives. His output spans history, philosophy, military science, and geography, exhibiting the rhetorical polish characteristic of the Second Sophistic while aiming at clarity and reliability.

The most famous of his historical works is the Anabasis Alexandrou (Anabasis of Alexander), a seven-book narrative of Alexander the Great’s campaigns from Macedon to India. Modelled explicitly on Xenophon’s Anabasis, Arrian’s work draws primarily on now-lost contemporary sources such as Ptolemy I and Aristobulus. He presents Alexander as an exceptional but complex leader, combining admiration for his strategic genius with acknowledgment of excesses and misjudgments. The Anabasis became one of antiquity’s most influential accounts of Alexander and remained a central source for later historians.

Closely related is the Indika, a shorter work on India and the Nearchus voyage in the Indian Ocean. It offers geographical and ethnographic observations derived from earlier reports and reflects the Roman-era fascination with the edges of the known world.

Arrian’s philosophical importance rests on his role as transmitter of Epictetus’ Stoicism. The Discourses of Epictetus (in four surviving books out of an original eight) and the Encheiridion (Handbook) are based on Arrian’s notes from Epictetus’ oral teaching. Arrian himself, in prefaces, claims that he tried to preserve Epictetus’ thought with minimal alteration, acting more as editor and recorder than as independent philosopher. Because Epictetus wrote nothing, Arrian’s redaction is the principal conduit for this strand of later Stoicism.

Besides these works, Arrian also wrote on tactics (Techne Taktike), giving an account of Hellenistic and Roman military formations; composed a now-fragmentary history of Events after Alexander (Ta met’ Alexandron); and produced other works, many of which are lost or preserved only in fragments and testimonia.

Arrian as Stoic and Historian

Arrian’s philosophical profile is largely Stoic, though he is not regarded as a major original thinker alongside figures such as Seneca, Epictetus, or Marcus Aurelius. His significance lies in the curation and preservation of Stoic ethics. By organizing Epictetus’ oral discussions into the Discourses and distilling key themes into the Encheiridion, Arrian shaped how later generations—late antique philosophers, Christian moralists, Byzantine scholars, and early modern thinkers—encountered Stoic ideas.

Key Stoic themes in Arrian’s Epictetan corpus include:

• The distinction between what is “up to us” (our judgments, impulses, desires) and what is not (external events, reputation, bodily health).
• The ideal of prohairesis (rational moral choice) as the core of human freedom and responsibility.
• The pursuit of apatheia, freedom from disordered passions, not as emotional numbness but as rational mastery.
• The model of the Stoic sage and the practical training required to approximate this ideal in everyday life.

Scholars debate how far Arrian’s editorial decisions influenced the shape of Epictetus’ thought. Some argue that his role was relatively neutral, citing his own assurance that he simply recorded what he heard. Others contend that choices about selection, arrangement, and stylistic polishing inevitably imposed a structure and emphasis that reflect Arrian’s own literary and philosophical preferences. Because alternative records of Epictetus do not survive, such questions remain largely speculative, but they underscore Arrian’s importance as a mediator of Stoicism rather than a mere stenographer.

As a historian, Arrian is often praised in modern scholarship for critical use of sources and relatively sober narrative. In the Anabasis of Alexander he explicitly distinguishes between more and less trustworthy accounts, preferring writers who had direct experience or access to official records. He adopts a classicizing style modelled on Xenophon and Thucydides, aligning himself with the Greek historiographical tradition even while writing under Roman rule. Some modern critics, however, note that his admiration for Alexander leads him to downplay or rationalize certain episodes of brutality or failure, suggesting that his work also functions as a kind of moral exemplum or mirror for rulers.

In both his historical and philosophical writings, Arrian presents a world in which character, rational self-command, and leadership are central. His Alexander is a paradigm of military and political ambition; his Epictetus is a paradigm of inner discipline and ethical seriousness. Later readers have sometimes juxtaposed these two strands of his oeuvre, viewing Arrian’s corpus as illustrating the tension between imperial power and philosophical self-mastery in the High Roman Empire.

Arrian’s long-term influence has been considerable. The Encheiridion became one of the most widely read Stoic texts in late antiquity and the Middle Ages, often through Christianized adaptations. The Anabasis shaped the image of Alexander for Byzantine, Islamic, and Western European traditions. Through these works, Arrian of Nicomedia occupies a pivotal place in the transmission of both Greek philosophy and classical historiography to subsequent cultures.