Codex 93

[Arrian, Bithynica]

Read the same author’s Bithynicain eight books, containing a detailed account of the mythical and general history of Bithynia. It is a history of his own country, dedicated to it as a patriotic offering. For he tells us definitely in this work that he was born in Nicomedia, brought up and educated there, and held, the office of priest of Demeter and her daughter, to whom the city was sacred. He mentions various works of his on other subjects, such as the career of the Corinthian Timoleon in Sicily, and the memorable deeds of Dion the Syracusan, who freed Syracuse and the whole of Sicily from the second Dionysius, the son of the first, and from the barbarians,- whom Dionysius had introduced to support his tyranny. It appears that the history of his country was the fourth work he wrote, being written after the histories of Alexander the Great, Timoleon, and Dion. Certainly from the time when he first took to a literary career he had intended to treat of this subject, but the work took some time to complete owing to the lack of material; at least, this is the reason he himself gives for the delay in its production. He begins, as stated, with mythical history and goes down to the death of the last Nicomedes,[1] who at his death left his kingdom to the Romans, who had never had a king since the expulsion of the Tarquins.