Itinerarium Alexandri

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The Itinerarium Alexandri is a late antique historiographical work written in Latin .

The itinerary was written by an anonymous author around the year 340 and is dedicated to Emperor Constantius II . It deals with the campaigns of Alexander the Great against the Achaemenid Empire and the campaigns of Emperor Trajan against the Parthians . However, in the only surviving manuscript from the 9th or 10th century, which was discovered by Angelo Mai in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana at the beginning of the 19th century, the text breaks off before Trajan's Parthian War is depicted. When depicting the Alexanderzug , the author mainly relied on Arrian . But it also contains other additions (for example from the Alexander novel ) and is sometimes quite flawed.

What is remarkable is the intention pursued by the author of the work. The composition is clearly related to the Persian War , which broke out again at the time of Constantius. Apparently the author was keen to inspire Constantius through the military successes of Alexander and Trajan to be victorious in the fight against the Sassanids . The author is unknown, but Robin Lane Fox has theorized that it could be Flavius ​​Polemius, the consul of 338, who is perhaps identical to Iulius Valerius Polemius .

Editions and translations

  • Iolo Davies: Alexander's itinerary (Itinerarium Alexandri). An English translation. In: The Ancient History Bulletin. Vol. 12, 1998, ISSN  0835-3638 , pp. 29-54.
  • Raffaella Tabacco (Ed.): Itinerarium Alexandri (= Università degli Studi di Torino, Fondo di studi Parini-Chirio. Filologia. Nuova series, vol. 1). Testo, apparato critico, introduzione, traduzione e commento. Olschki, Florence 2000, ISBN 88-222-4920-8 .

literature