SOURCE: “Arrian as Legate of Cappadocia,” in The English Historical Review, Vol. XLIV, October, 1896, pp. 625-40.

In the essay below, Pelham surveys Arrian's works, noting ways in which Arrian's military experience informed his writings.

That Arrian, the historian of Alexander the Great and the disciple of Epictetus, was also for a time governor of the important frontier province of Cappadocia is a fact which, though long known as well established, has received much less attention than it deserves. Yet it is remarkable enough that a Greek philosopher and man of letters should have been entrusted by a Roman emperor with a first-rate military command. It was, indeed, no uncommon thing, in the second century a.d., for Greeks to find admission into the Roman senate, and to be decorated with a consulship. More rarely a distinguished Greek was given some administrative post in a peaceful province, such as...