Onesicritus
Encyclopedia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
. He claimed to have been the commander of Alexander's fleet but was actually only a helmsman; Arrian and Nearchus often criticize him for this. When he returned home, he wrote a history of Alexander's campaigns. He is frequently cited by later authors, who also criticize him for his inaccuracies.
Life
He was a native of AstypalaiaAstypalaia
Astypalaia , called in Italian Stampalia and in Ottoman Turkish İstanbulya , is a Greek island with 1,238 residents . It belongs to the Dodecanese, an island group of twelve major islands in the southeastern Aegean Sea. The island is 18 km. long, 13 km. wide at the most, and covers an...
, and it was probably to this island origin that he owed the nautical skills which would prove so advantageous to him. He was a disciple of Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes the Cynic was a Greek philosopher and one of the founders of Cynic philosophy. Also known as Diogenes of Sinope , he was born in Sinope , an Ionian colony on the Black Sea , in 412 or 404 BCE and died at Corinth in 323 BCE.Diogenes of Sinope was a controversial figure...
, the Cynic philosopher. Diogenes Laërtius
Diogenes Laertius
Diogenes Laertius was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. Nothing is known about his life, but his surviving Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers is one of the principal surviving sources for the history of Greek philosophy.-Life:Nothing is definitively known about his life...
also calls him "Onesicritus of Aegina
Aegina
Aegina is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina, the mother of Aeacus, who was born in and ruled the island. During ancient times, Aegina was a rival to Athens, the great sea power of the era.-Municipality:The municipality...
", and says that he came to Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
because his two adult sons, Androsthenes and Philiscus
Philiscus of Aegina
Philiscus of Aegina was a Cynic philosopher from Aegina who lived in the latter half of the 4th century BC. He was the son of Onesicritus who sent Philiscus and his younger brother, Androsthenes, to Athens where they were so charmed by the philosophy of Diogenes of Sinope that Onesicritus also...
, were attracted to the philosophy of Diogenes the Cynic, whence Onesicritus also became an ardent disciple. If so, he must have been already advanced in years when he joined the expedition of Alexander.
We have no account of the circumstances which led him to accompany Alexander into Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
, nor in what capacity he attended on the conqueror; but during the expedition into India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
he was sent by the king to hold a conference with the Indian philosophers or Gymnosophists
Gymnosophists
Gymnosophists is the name given by the Greeks to certain ancient Indian philosophers who pursued asceticism to the point of regarding food and clothing as detrimental to purity of thought ....
, the details of which have been transmitted to us from his own account of the interview. When Alexander constructed his fleet on the Hydaspes, he appointed Onesicritus to the important station of pilot of the king's ship, or chief pilot of the fleet , a post which he held not only during the descent of the Indus, but throughout the long and perilous voyage from the river to the Persian gulf
Persian Gulf
The Persian Gulf, in Southwest Asia, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.The Persian Gulf was the focus of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War, in which each side attacked the other's oil tankers...
. Alexander was so satisfied with his work that, on his arrival at Susa
Susa
Susa was an ancient city of the Elamite, Persian and Parthian empires of Iran. It is located in the lower Zagros Mountains about east of the Tigris River, between the Karkheh and Dez Rivers....
, Onesicritus was rewarded with a crown of gold, at the same time as Nearchus
Nearchus
Nearchus was one of the officers, a navarch, in the army of Alexander the Great. His celebrated voyage from India to Susa after Alexander's expedition in India is preserved in Arrian's account, the Indica....
. Yet Arrian
Arrian
Lucius Flavius Arrianus 'Xenophon , known in English as Arrian , and Arrian of Nicomedia, was a Roman historian, public servant, a military commander and a philosopher of the 2nd-century Roman period...
blames him for lack of judgment, and on one occasion expressly ascribes the safety of the fleet to the firmness of Nearchus in overruling his advice. We know nothing of his subsequent fortunes; but from an anecdote related by Plutarch
Plutarch
Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
it seems probable that he attached himself to Lysimachus
Lysimachus
Lysimachus was a Macedonian officer and diadochus of Alexander the Great, who became a basileus in 306 BC, ruling Thrace, Asia Minor and Macedon.-Early Life & Career:...
, and it was perhaps at the court of that monarch that he composed his historical work, though, on the other hand, a passage of Lucian
Lucian
Lucian of Samosata was a rhetorician and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature.His ethnicity is disputed and is attributed as Assyrian according to Frye and Parpola, and Syrian according to Joseph....
might suggest that this was begun during the lifetime of Alexander himself.
Writings
We learn from Diogenes Laërtius that Onesicritus wrote a work about Alexander called How Alexander was Educated , imitating the style of XenophonXenophon
Xenophon , son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, also known as Xenophon of Athens, was a Greek historian, soldier, mercenary, philosopher and a contemporary and admirer of Socrates...
, though he fell short of him as a copy does of the original. It is most frequently cited in regard to the campaigns of Alexander in Asia, and for descriptions of the countries that he visited. Though an eye-witness of much that he described, it appears that he intermixed many fables and falsehoods with his narrative, so that he early fell into discredit as an authority. Strabo
Strabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
is especially severe upon him. Plutarch
Plutarch
Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
cites him as one of those who related the fable of the visit of the Amazons
Amazons
The Amazons are a nation of all-female warriors in Greek mythology and Classical antiquity. Herodotus placed them in a region bordering Scythia in Sarmatia...
to Alexander, for which he was justly ridiculed by Lysimachus
Lysimachus
Lysimachus was a Macedonian officer and diadochus of Alexander the Great, who became a basileus in 306 BC, ruling Thrace, Asia Minor and Macedon.-Early Life & Career:...
, and Arrian
Arrian
Lucius Flavius Arrianus 'Xenophon , known in English as Arrian , and Arrian of Nicomedia, was a Roman historian, public servant, a military commander and a philosopher of the 2nd-century Roman period...
accuses him of falsely representing himself as the commander of the fleet, when he was in truth only the pilot. Aulus Gellius
Aulus Gellius
Aulus Gellius , was a Latin author and grammarian, who was probably born and certainly brought up in Rome. He was educated in Athens, after which he returned to Rome, where he held a judicial office...
even associates him with Aristeas of Proconnesus, and other purely fabulous writers. But it is clear that these censures are overcharged; and though some of the statements cited from him are certainly gross exaggerations, his work appears to have contained much valuable information concerning the remote countries for the first time laid open by the expedition of Alexander. In particular he was the first author that mentioned the island of Taprobane, which is known today as Sri Lanka.