Borysthenes Alanus Cæsareus Veredus, &c.
[Sidenote: De Remediis U. F. L. +i+. D. +xxxii.+]
For all which unbounded affection for the brute creation, the reader may remember, he incurs the severity of Petrarch’s satire in the dialogue “de Venatu et Aucupio.”
Whether the similarity of Arrian’s rural diversions to those of Hadrian in early life, co-operated with other causes to his elevation by so capricious and eccentric a patron, must ever remain doubtful. He is not mentioned by name in the biography of Hadrian by Spartian: where it is stated, in general terms only, of this singular Emperor, that he was on terms of familiar intimacy with Epictetus, Heliodorus, and _all_ grammarians, rhetoricians, &c. Of his acquaintance with the eminent men of his capital there can be no doubt, and his roving disposition must have introduced such to his notice in the colonies and more distant parts of the empire. One, therefore, who had been following the same pursuits with himself from his youth upwards, a sportsman, a military tactician, and a joint friend of Epictetus, was not likely to escape him. Besides, we are assured that he was, on all occasions, sociable in his field amusements, “venationem semper cum amicis participavit;” and therefore we may suppose that the literary founder of Adrianotheræ would gladly avail himself of the earliest opportunity of adding to his personal friends and sporting associates the most accomplished writer and courser of his day. We know how much the pleasure of intercourse is enhanced by identity of pursuit; and how strong the hold which innocent amusements, shared with congenial friends, have on our affections!
[Sidenote: Oppian. Cyneg. +ii.+ vs. 32.]
οὐ γάρ τις κέντροισι δαμεὶς ἄγρης ἐρατεινῆς αὖτις ἑκὼν λείψειεν, ἔχει δέ μιν ἄσπετα δεσμά.
[Sidenote: De Venat. c. +i.+]
[Sidenote: Ejusdem c. +v.+]
As to the period of his life at which Arrian may be supposed to have written the Cynegeticus, the inference to be drawn from the meagre paragraph of autobiography in the first chapter, wherein he states his fitness to supply the deficiencies of the elder Xenophon’s work, from having been ἀμφὶ ταὐτὰ ἀπὸ νέου ἐσπουδακὼς, κυνηγέσια καὶ στρατηγίαν καὶ σοφίαν, although it establishes the fact of his early predilection for field sports, yet it rather militates against the idea of the Cynegeticus having been written at a very early period of the author’s life. However, be this as it may, his patronage of “_the long dogs_” continued at the time of his writing this libellus; and his beloved Ὁρμὴ, ὠκυτάτη, καὶ σοφωτάτη, καὶ ἱεροτάτη, was then in his possession, living seemingly in the closest intimacy with his attached and philosophic master, and sharing with Megillus his society at home and abroad, the well-earned recompense in declining years of the excellence he had manifested in the vigour of his youthful days on the coursing plain; where, in Arrian’s own words of eulogy, τέτταρσιν ἤδη ποτὲ λαγωοῖς ἐφ’ ἡλικίας ἀντήρκησεν.[31]
[Sidenote: Arrian. de Exped. Alexand. L. +i.+ c. +xii.+ Vide Raphelii annotat. in loc.]
Antiquity is almost silent relative to the personal history of the younger Xenophon;[32] and as an autobiographer, he seems to have been desirous that nothing should be known of himself or family; but rather that his personal history should be darkened under the doubtful celebrity of anonymous authorship, or merged in the somewhat arrogant assumption of a fictitious and equivocal title. In the conclusion of the 12th chapter of the 1st book of his History of Alexander’s Anabasis, he says that the number and magnitude of the exploits of the son of Philip, were his inducement to record them, not deeming himself altogether unworthy to transmit them to posterity. “But who I am,” he continues, “that thus characterise myself, and what my name, (though far from obscure,) it concerns the reader but little to know. Neither would an account of my family, my city, nor such offices as I have there borne, be of any use to him. Be it sufficient for him to know, that an ardent love of literature, in which I have constantly indulged myself from youth, has been with me instead of family connexion, and civic and magisterial honours. Wherefore I may perhaps be little less worthy of a place among the most celebrated authors of Greece, than Alexander among her most illustrious heroes.”
[Sidenote: Phot. Eclog. Arrian. Parthica.]
After the brief sketch which I have given of the writings of the younger Xenophon, it must strike every one that he was influenced in the choice of his subjects as an author, by a recollection of what had engaged the literary attention of his celebrated namesake; and that while writing under the same personal appellative, he probably proposed to imitate the matter and style of composition of his prototype—ἰσχνὸς τὴν φράσιν, καὶ μιμητὴς ὡς ἀληθῶς Ξενοφῶντος.
Under this view of his works we have the dissertations of Epictetus from the pen of his most renowned follower, the Bithynian Xenophon, and the Memorabilia of Socrates from that of the son of Gryllus, the most eminent disciple of the Socratic school: the Anabasis of Alexander for that of Cyrus, with the same distribution of the work into seven books, and the same title. The Hellenica of Xenophon gave birth to the Parthica and Bithynica of Arrian: and in imitation of the Essay on Hunting, our pseudo-Xenophon has left us his Observations on Coursing.
Upon their general similarity of character in active life I have already remarked, and shall only observe farther, that, as far as we can judge from the scanty personal anecdotes which have survived of the younger, for comparison with those of the elder philosopher, this similarity appears to have extended to the frame and composition of their minds. Many of the same excellencies, and respectable weaknesses of character, co-existed in both; the same patient and unerring virtue—the same kind and generous feeling—the same credulous and enthusiastic regard to celestial admonitions—πειθομένους τεράεσσι θεῶν—with a proportionate degree of the purest heathen piety.
[Sidenote: De Expedit. Alexandri L. +vii.+ c. +xxx.+]
If it be stigmatised with the title of superstitious credulity in the priest of Ceres, that he supposed himself led by divine inspiration to write the history of a man, οὐδενὶ ἄλλῳ ἀνθρώπων ἐοικὼς, I would plead his enthusiastic admiration of his hero in palliation of the fond supposition, qualified as it is, with equal good sense and piety, in the concluding sentences of the Anabasis; where he states that as so extraordinary a person as Alexander could not have risen up in the world without divine interference—οὐδ’ ἔξω τοῦ θείου; so, with admiration of his good qualities, and reprobation of his bad ones, with a strict regard to truth, and public utility, he professes himself his historian, writing, as he verily believes, under the same divine influence that first gave being to the subject of his memoir.
Surely such a belief in heavenly interference, exciting its professor to what is just and honourable, and deterring him from every breach of propriety, as an historian of truth, must be applauded by every fair and impartial judge of human character; and more particularly so, when in the person of a Stoic, unenlightened by any philosophy but that of Epictetus, it could have no other foundation than innate rectitude of mind.
Under the conviction that Arrian’s expectation of posthumous fame has been realized in general, and that my brethren of the leash will award him particular honour as the first writer of a Courser’s Manual, I conclude this brief sketch of his life and literary labours; which might have been more full, if his biography by Dion Cassius had come down to us.
As the compiler of the Stoical philosophy of “the Phrygian Slave,” the historian of the son of Philip,[33] the hydrographer of the Euxine, a military tactician, a warrior-prefect, and a classic courser, he has left works behind him which will endure as long as literature itself;—he has done all in his power to benefit and instruct mankind in various departments of human learning;—has contributed his mite to the advancement of rational science and healthful recreation, and proved himself worthy of the immortality he so fondly anticipated.
[Illustration: LA CHAUSSE.]
[Illustration: MAFFEI]
[Illustration: ΚΥΘΝ]
ARRIAN ON COURSING.
Οὐ γάρ τοι οὐδ’ ἴσος ὁ ἀγὼν λαγωῷ καὶ κυνί· ἀλλ’ ὁ μὲν, ὅποι βούλεται, θεῖ, ἡ δὲ ἄλλῳ ἐφομαρτεῖ· καὶ ὁ μὲν ἐξελίξας τὸν δρόμον καὶ διαῤῥίψας τὴν κύνα ἴεται τοῦ πρόσω, ἡ δὲ, εἰ διαῤῥιφθείη, πλάζεται· καὶ ἀνάγκη φθάσαντα αὖ μεταθεῖν καὶ ἀναλαβεῖν, ὅσον ἐξηνέχθη τοῦ δρόμου.—+Arrian. de Venat.+ c. +xvii.+
——Canis in vacuo leporem cum Gallicus arvo Vidit; et hic prædam pedibus petit, ille salutem: Alter inhæsuro similis, jam jamque tenere Sperat, et extento stringit vestigia rostro; Alter in ambiguo est, an sit deprensus, et ipsis Morsibus eripitur; tangentiaque ora relinquit.
+Ovid. Metam.+ L. +i.+ 533.