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How did the historian Arrian preserve information from Ptolemy I Soter’s lost history?
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Ptolemy I Soter
Ptolemy I Soter, portrait on a silver tetradrachm; in the British Museum
Although the original history of Alexander the Great’s campaigns written by Ptolemy I Soter is now lost, its contents were preserved through the work of the 2nd-century historian Arrian.12
Arrian extensively utilized Ptolemy’s account as a primary source when writing his own work, the Anabasis, which details the military exploits of Alexander the Great. Modern historians are able to reconstruct much of the information from Ptolemy’s original text by analyzing the material Arrian incorporated into his own historical narrative.12