CTESIAS

born c. 416 BC, , Cnidus, Caria Greek physician and historian of Persia and India whose works were the only historical writings of his time based on official Persian sources. Ctesias traveled to the Persian court, where he remained as physician for 17 years under the rulers Darius II and Artaxerxes Mnemon. He apparently accompanied the latter to the Battle of Cunaxa in 401. Returning to Greece in 398, Ctesias began writing his Persicha, a history of Assyria-Babylonia in 23 books covering the period of the ancient Assyrian monarchy, the founding of the Persian kingdom, and the history of Persia down to 398 BC. Although his material was gathered from Persian archives and state records, its credibility is dubious because of its legendary quality and the fact that Ctesias was writing expressly to contradict the chronology of the Greek historian Herodotus. The work no longer exists, except in an abstract compiled by the patriarch Photius of Constantinople (fl. c. 860). Ctesias also wrote a history of India based on reports of Persian visitors and of Indian merchants and envoys to the Persian court. Although legendary and fabulous, it was the only systematic account of India until Alexander the Great's invasion of that country.