High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Lucius Flavius Arrianus 'Xenophon' (ca. 86 - 160), known in English as Arrian , and Arrian of Nicomedia, was a Roman (ethnic Greek) historian, public servant, a military commander and a philosopher of the 2nd-century Roman period. As with other authors of the Second Sophistic, Arrian wrote primarily in Attic (Indica is in Herodotus' Ionic dialect, his philosophical works in Koine Greek) . His works preserve the philosophy of Epictetus, and include the Anabasis of Alexander, an important account of Alexander the Great, as well as the Indica a description of Nearchus' voyage from India following Alexander's conquest, and other short works. He is not to be confused with the Athenian military leader and author, Xenophon from the 4th century BC, whose best-known work was also titled Anabasis. Arrian is generally considered one of the best sources on the campaigns of Alexander as well as one of the founders of a primarily military-based focus on history.