The Only Writer In The Time Of Adrian, From Whom We Can Derive Any
Additional Information Respecting The Geography And Trade Of The Romans, Is
Arrian.
He was a native of Nicodemia, and esteemed one of the most learned
men of his age; to him we are indebted for the journal of Nearchus's
voyage, an abstract of which has been given.
His accuracy as a geographer,
is sufficiently established in that work, and indeed, in almost all the
particulars respecting India, which he has detailed in his history of the
expedition of Alexander the Great; and in his Indica, which may be regarded
as an appendix to that history. He lived at Rome, under the emperors
Adrian, Antoninus, and Marcus Aurelius, and was preferred to the highest
posts of honour, and even to the consulship. In the year A.D. 170, he was
appointed governor of Pontus, by Adrian, for the special purpose of
opposing the Alani, who were invading that part of the empire. His
situation and opportunities as governor, enabled him to derive the most
accurate and particular information respecting the Euxine Sea, which he
addressed in a letter to Adrian; this Periplus, as it is called, "contains
whatever the governor of Pontus had seen, from Trebizond to Dioscurias;
whatever he had heard from Dioscurias to the Danube and whatever he knew
from the Danube to Trebizond."
The letter begins with the arrival of Arrian at Trebizond, at which place,
the artificial port already noticed was then forming.
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