Chares from Mytilene
Chares of Mytilene ( ancient Greek Χάρης Chárēs ) was an ancient Greek historian . He lived in the 4th century BC. Chr.
Chares came from the city of Mytilene on the island of Lesbos . He took part in the campaign of Alexander the Great against the Achaemenid Empire . He probably acted as a kind of steward. He later wrote a story of the Alexanderzug in ten or eleven books. Only fragments of the work, which after Athenaeus had the title Stories about Alexander , have survived, some of which are of great value. For example, Chares reports on Susa's mass wedding and other events at Alexander's court.
The reliability of the Chares is difficult to assess, since in some fragments that reveal the partly anecdotal character of his work, inaccuracies or even gross errors can be identified; Sometimes there are also novel-like features to be seen, for example in the story about Zariadres . The work should not have been a strictly chronological and exhaustive account of history, but rather a description that concentrated on certain events and whose center of action was the court of Alexander. However, Chares was also used by other Alexander historians , such as Kleitarchos and Plutarch .
Text output
- Brill's New Jacoby No. 125 (text, English translation and commentary)
literature
- Lionel Pearson: The Lost Histories of Alexander the Great. Blackwell, Oxford 1960, pp. 50-61 ( online version ).
- Eduard Schwartz : Chares 13 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume III, 2, Stuttgart 1899, Col. 2129 (outdated).
Web links
- Chares from Mytilene . In: Ehsan Yarshater (Ed.): Encyclopædia Iranica (English, including references)
Remarks
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Chares from Mytilene |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Greek historian |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 4th century BC Chr. |
| DATE OF DEATH | 4th century BC BC or 3rd century BC Chr. |