Alexander Polyhistor

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Alexander Polyhistor was a Greek scholar from Miletus who lived in the first half of the 1st century BC. He was captured by Romans during the Mithridatic War and taken to Rome as a slave to tutor a Roman family. After his release, he remained in Italy as a Roman citizen.

He was so productive that he earned the nickname Polyhistor, meaning very learned. Most of his writings are lost, but the surviving fragments still shed light on ancient lands and cultures in the eastern Mediterranean. His works included long historical and geographical writings about nearly all the ancient countries, and a notable book called On the Jews, which paraphrased many Jewish writings that would otherwise be unknown.

The main source about his life is the Suda, a 10th-century encyclopedia. Alexander was born in Miletus between 110 and 105 BC, studied under Crates of Mallus in Pergamon, and was captured and brought to Rome. He was owned by Cornelius Lentulus and became his tutor. He was freed and given Roman citizenship by Sulla in 81 BC and taught Hyginus.

His most important work was a 42-book collection of history and geography covering many peoples and regions, including five books on Rome, Egyptian history, and other regions such as Bithynia, the Black Sea area, Illyria, India, and a Chaldean history. He also wrote about the Jews, preserving excerpts from Jewish writers. As a philosopher, he wrote a work called Successions of Philosophers.

None of his books survive in full; what we know comes from quotations and paraphrases in later authors like Diogenes Laertius and Eusebius. Alexander’s fragments show him drawing on both Jewish and non-Jewish sources, and they have provided valuable, if imperfect, insight into ancient Jewish, Hellenic, and Samaritan history.

He died sometime after 40 BC in a fire at Laurentum. Modern scholars note that, while he may have been more of a compiler than a stylist, his fragments remain an important bridge to many ancient writings that would otherwise be lost.