Who Was Ctesias?

Ctesias, the author of the Zarinaea and Stryangaeus story, was an extraordinary figure, a Greek who spent time in the Persian court and claimed to have access to Persian sources. He was influential stylistically on the novelistic tradition; and he also may have been highly self-conscious about the fictive nature of his writing (although it is impossible to tell without his own words).

Art · Linguistics · Literature · Persian · Ancient Near East History · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classical Philosophy and Thought · History · Philosophy