Ctésias

Ctésias (in Greek old Κτήσιας / Ktếsias ), born with Cnide at fifth century BC, died after 398 av. J. - C., Greek doctor with the service of Artaxerxès II, Historian of the Persian and the India.

Biography

Family member of the Asclépiades, it is born with Cnide, city of minor Asia famous for his doctors. He becomes the doctor of Artaxerxès II Mnémon, Grand King de Perse, and of his family, at an unknown date. Diodore of Sicily and Jean Tzétzès indicate that there remain 17 years with his service, and that he returns at his place in 398, which places the beginning of its Persian career in 415. Diodore specifies that it joined the Large King after being made prisoner by Persians. According to Xénophon, Ctésias accompanies Artaxerxès at the time of the Bataille of Counaxa (401), delivered against his/her brother Cyrus the Young person.

Ctésias dies after its return to Cnide, at an unknown date.

Work

Ctésias is mainly the author of historical work on the India and the Perse, which remained in the form of quotations or of summaries. It also wrote works whose only title is known:

On the mountains ( Περὶ ὀρῶν / Perì orôn ) and On the rivers ( Περὶ ποταμῶν / Perished potamôn ), quoted by Plutarque;
the Turn of Asia ( Περίπλους Ἀσίας / Períplous Asías ), quoted by Stephan de Byzance;
Of the tributes in Asia ( Περὶ τῶν κατὰ τὴν Ἀσίαν φόρων / Perì your katà tên Asían phórôn ), perhaps an appendix of the History of Persia .

It remains of these ouvragse only fragments and extracts made by Photius; one often finds them following Hérodote: Larcher joined them to its translation. Bœhr gave of it a separated edition, Francfort-sur-le-Main, 1824. They are also in the Historicor. fragm. of the Greek Library of Didot.

The History of Persia

The History of Persia ( Περσικά / Persika ) is written starting from the notes taken by Ctésias during its stay in Persia. It aims at better doing to know the Persian people with the Greeks, and to correct the vision in particular that Hérodote gave some. According to Diodore (II, 32,4), it is based not only on its personal experience, but also on the “royal parchments ( basilikai will diphterai ) in which, according to certain habit ( nomos ), Persians consigned the facts of the past. ” However, no other element comes to corroborate the existence of historical files.

The work is composed of 23 books, written in a tinted language of Ionian dialect. The six first point out the history of the country, of the Assyrian to the Persian Empire. Books VII to XIII contain the history of Persia until Xerxès, and the ten following books continue until the departure of Ctésias for Cnide. Affectionate Ctésias the anecdotes, and enjoys to enamel its text of dramatic or extraordinary passages. For this reason, Plutarque, in its Life of Artaxerxès , shows it “to have filled its books with a disparate bunch of incredible and extravagant myths” (I, 4).

Only extracts of work were preserved, preserved by authors like Plutarque, Athénée or Diodore of Sicily. Photius also partially summarized it.

The History of India

Ctésias is also the author of a Histoire of India ( Ἰνδικά / Indika ). It attempts to describe the north of the country, manners of the inhabitants, fauna and the flora that one meets there. It is more about searchs that for a history to the modern direction of the term. With reading Photius, work does not have of a particular nature: Ctésias tackles a subject there after the other, with the liking of its imagination. For him, India is a fantastic country: it collects all the fabulous accounts which it can hear about it. Thus it evokes:

of the “cynocephali” (literally, “with head of dog”) - probably a bad interpretation of a comment on lower castes, obliged to eat with the dogs, and which seem to be at the origin of the myth of the crocotes;
will martichoras it (Manticore, kind of Lion to human face, equipped with a tail of scorpion);
of the Sciapode S, individuals ombrageant itself of their foot, undoubtedly a bad comprehension of a ritual practice of the Sâdhu S.

Following the example History of Persia , this work is mainly known by quotations of Photius and Élien.

Sources

(II, 32);
( Artaxerxes , I, 4; VI, 9; IX, 1,4; XI; XIII, 3-7; XIV, 1; XVIII, 1-7; XIX, 2-5; XXI, 3-4);
(XIV);
Xénophon, Anabase (I, 8);

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