Arrian (Flavius Arrianus), widely known as the most readable and reliable of the extant historians of Alexander the Great and as preserver of the teaching of the philosopher Epictetus, was active in the first half of the second century A.D. His life is marked by duality: a citizen of the Greek city of Nicomedia who wrote his histories in cultured and classicizing Greek, he was also a Roman citizen and senator who, under the emperor Hadrian, rose to become consul (A.D. 129) and governor of Cappadocia (circa A.D. 131-137) with the command of two legions. Soldier, administrator, man of letters, philosopher, huntsman, he represented the ideal combination of Greek and Roman qualities for the century in which he lived.

Nicomedia (now Izmit) was a prosperous city of the Roman province of Bithynia, in the northwest corner of Anatolia. Arrian was born there in about A.D...