Quintus Curtius Rufus rose from a dubious background to the ranks of Roman nobility during the reigns of Tiberius Caesar Augustus and Caligula in the first century A.D.
As a Roman senator, in the years before his death Rufus recorded the life of Alexander the Great [De gestis Alexandri Magni], basing his account largely on a biography by Cleitarchus who was a contemporary of Alexander. Although this introduced some mistakes into Rufus's novel-like work, it is notable for both having survived mostly intact for 2 centuries and for containing relatively simple latin phrasing.
The images here are details from a 1467 copy made of De gestis Alexandri Magni by Petrus Cenninius in Florence. It has been owned by the National Széchényi Library of Hungary since 1830.
- The whole of the Petrus manuscript is on display through the Hungarian Bibliotecha Corviniana Digitalis site - english commentary/options available.
- A good short commentary on the quality of the original work of Rufus.
- Highlights in english of what we are told by Rufus of Alexander.
- The extant latin text reproduced.
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