Lucius Cornelius Alexander Polyhistor was a Greek scholar who was enslaved by the Romans during the war of Sulla and taken to Rome as a tutor. After his release, he continued to live in Italy as a Roman citizen. He was so productive a writer that he earned the surname ‘’polyhistor’’. The majority of his writings are now lost, but the fragments that remain shed valuable light on antiquarian and eastern Mediterranean subjects. Alexander's most important treatise consisted of 42 books of historical and geographical accounts of nearly all the countries of the ancient world. His other notable work is about the Jews; it reproduces in paraphrase relevant excerpts from Jewish writers, of whom otherwise nothing would be known. One of Alexander’s students was Gaius Julius Hyginus, Latin author, scholar and friend of Ovid, who was appointed by Augustus to be superintendent of the Palatine library. As a philosopher, Alexander Polyhistor wrote Successions of Philosophers, mentioned several times by Diogenes Laertius in his Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. From what Laertius describes or paraphrases in his work, Alexander recorded various thoughts (on contradictions, fate, life, soul and its parts, perfect figures), and different curiosities (such as do not eat beans). Ancient Rome was a civilization that existed in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East between 753 BC and its downfall in AD 476. ... This page is about the Roman dictator Sulla, for the Brythonic goddess sometimes called Sulla, see Sul. ... City motto: Senatus Populusque Romanus – SPQR (The Senate and the People of Rome) Founded 21 April 753 BC mythical, 1st millennium BC Region Latium Mayor Walter Veltroni (Left-Wing Democrats) Area  - City Proper  1290 km² Population  - City (2004)  - Metropolitan  - Density (city proper) 2,546,807 almost 4,000,000... Gaius Julius Hyginus, (c. ... Engraved frontispiece of George Sandyss 1632 London edition of Publius Ovidius Naso (Sulmona, March 20, 43 BC â€“ Tomis, now Constanta AD 17) Roman poet known to the English-speaking world as Ovid, wrote on topics of love, abandoned women, and mythological transformations. ... Augustus (plural Augusti) is Latin for majestic or venerable. The greek equivalent is sebastos, or a mere grecization (by changing of the ending) augustos. ... Successions of Philosophers or Philosophers Successions is a lost book written by Alexander Polyhistor, and referenced several times in Diogenes Laertius book Vitae philosophorum (Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers). ... Diogenes Laërtius, the biographer of the Greek philosophers, is supposed by some to have received his surname from the town of Laerte in Cilicia, and by others from the Roman family of the Laërtii. ... Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers is a biography of the Greek philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius. ...

(1911EB version)

Alexander Cornelius, Greek grammarian, surnamed Polyhistor from his great learning, born at Miletus or Myndus in Caria, flourished about 70 B.C. He was taken prisoner in the Mithridatic war by Sulla, from whom (or from Cornelius Lentulus) he received his freedom and assumed the name Cornelius. He accompanied Crassus on his Parthian campaigns, and perished at the destruction by fire of his house at Laurentum. He is said to have written "books without number," chiefly on historical and geographical subjects. Of the extant fragments (Müller, Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, iii:) those relating to the Jews are important as containing quotations from lost Jewish authors. Miletus was an ancient city on the western coast of Anatolia (in what is now the Aydin Province of Turkey), near the mouth of the Maeander River. ... Location of Caria Caria (Greek Καρία; see also List of traditional Greek place names) was a region of Asia Minor, situated south of Ionia, and west of Phrygia and Lycia. ... Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix (Latin: L·CORNELIVS·L·F·P·N·SVLLA·FELIX) ¹ (ca. ... Marcus Licinius Crassus Dives (c. ... Parthian Empire at its greatest extent, c60 BC. The Parthian Empire was the dominating force on the Iranian plateau beginning in the late 3rd century BCE, and intermittently controlled Mesopotamia between ca 190 BCE and 224 CE. Parthia was the arch-enemy of the Roman Empire in the east and...

References

• This article incorporates text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, which is in the public domain.

Supporters contend that the Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1910-1911) represents the sum of human knowledge at the beginning of the 20th century; indeed, it was advertised as such. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ...

External links

• Life and Works
• Example of Alexander's Work