12-25-2005, 09:58 PM
I've put on-line the text of Photius' excerpt from Ctesias' Persian History. It can be found at [url:1rkya5e3]http://www.livius.org/ct-cz/ctesias/photius_persica.html[/url]. The reliability of this source is very limited, but it may contain some elements that less unreliable.
This can not be said of his Indike, which is quite simply a big bag of fairy tales ([url:1rkya5e3]http://www.livius.org/ct-cz/ctesias/photius_indica.html[/url]).
And for those who were interested in Philostratus' Life of Apollonius: it is now on-line at [url:1rkya5e3]http://www.livius.org/ap-ark/apollonius/life/va_00.html[/url]. Again, this is not a very reliable source, but the first book appears to have some echoes of real information on the Arsacid Empire. For example, Philostratus correctly describes Niniveh and Babylon as a living cities, something he can not have found in other Greek or Latin sources. And the story of Apollonius tells us a lot about the attitudes and opinions of the Graeco-Roman elite in the first half of the third century.
This can not be said of his Indike, which is quite simply a big bag of fairy tales ([url:1rkya5e3]http://www.livius.org/ct-cz/ctesias/photius_indica.html[/url]).
And for those who were interested in Philostratus' Life of Apollonius: it is now on-line at [url:1rkya5e3]http://www.livius.org/ap-ark/apollonius/life/va_00.html[/url]. Again, this is not a very reliable source, but the first book appears to have some echoes of real information on the Arsacid Empire. For example, Philostratus correctly describes Niniveh and Babylon as a living cities, something he can not have found in other Greek or Latin sources. And the story of Apollonius tells us a lot about the attitudes and opinions of the Graeco-Roman elite in the first half of the third century.
