People > Quintus Marcius Rufus

Quintus Marcius Rufus

Background

CURTIUS RUFUS, QUINTUS, biographer of Alexander the Great. Of his personal history nothing is known, nor can his date be fixed with certainty. Modern authorities regard him as a rhetorician who flourished during the reign of Claudius (A.D. 41–54). His work (De Rebus gestis Alexandri Magni) originally consisted of ten books, of which the first two are entirely lost, and the remaining eight are incomplete. Although the work is uncritical, and shows the author’s ignorance of geography, chronology and military matters, it is written in a picturesque style.

There are numerous editions: (text) T. Vogel (1889), P. H. Damste (1897), E. Hedicke (1908); (with notes), T. Vogel (1885 and later), M. Croiset (1885), H. W. Reich (1895), C. Lebaigue (1900), T. Stangl (1902). There is an English translation by P. Pratt (1821). See S. Dosson, Étude sur Quinte-Curce, sa vie, et ses œuvres (1887) a valuable work; F. von Schwarz, Alexander des Grossen Feldzüge in Turkestan (1893), a commentary on Arrian and Curtius based upon the author’s personal knowledge of the topography; C. Wachsmuth, Einleitung in das Studium der alten Geschichte (1895), p. 574, cf. p. 567, note 2; Schwarz, “Curtius Rufus” No. 31 in Pauly-Wissowa (1901).

Sources

Primary Sources

Secondary Sources

1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 7