Arrian's Preface to the Anabasis Alexandrou and Plutarch's Prologue to the Life of Alexander

Abstract

Arrian's Preface to the Anabasis Alexandrou and Plutarch's Prologue to the Life of Alexander
 It is usually maintained that the main object of Arrian’s criticism in his Anabasis are the historians of Alexander the Great. In the following I would like to argue that one of the writers Arrian criticized was also Plutarch of Chaeronea who wrote an influential biography of the Macedonian king. Although Arrian never referred directly to Plutarch’s Life of Alexander, he read not only many historical works on the king but used and criticized other accounts, called by him ta legomena (‘tales’). To this latter group Plutarch’s vita Alexandri should be included as well.