Ctesias
（
Κτησίας). A Greek historian, born in Cnidus in Caria, and
a contemporary of Xenophon. He belonged to the family of the Asclepiadae at Cnidus. In B.C.
416, he went to the Persian court, and became private physician to King Artaxerxes Mnemon. In
this capacity he accompanied the king on his expedition against his brother Cyrus, and cured
him of the wound which he received in the battle of Cunaxa, B.C. 401. In 399, he returned to
his native city, and worked up the valuable material which he had collected during his
residence in Persia, partly from his own observation and partly from his study of the royal
archives, into a History of Persia (
Περσικά), in
twenty-three books. The work was written in the Ionic dialect. The first six books treated the
history of Assyria, the remaining ones that of Persia from the earliest times to events within
his own experience. Ctesias's work was much used by the ancient historians, though he was
censured as untrustworthy and indifferent to truth—a charge which may be due to the
fact that he followed Persian authorities, and thus often differed, to the disadvantage of the
Greeks, from the version of facts current among his conntrymen. Only fragments and extracts of
the book survive, and part of an abridgment in Photius (
Cod. 72). The same is
true of his
Ἰνδικά, or notices of the researches which he
had made in Persia on the geography and productions of India. See Blum,
Herodot
und Ctesias (Heidelberg, 1836); and
Gilmore, The Fragments of
the Persica of Ctesias (1888).
