CLEITARCHUS  , one of the historians of

Alexander the Great, son of Deinon, also an historian, was possibly a native of Egypt, or at least spent a considerable time at the court of Ptolemy Lagus . Quintilian (Instit. x . 1 . 74) credits him with more ability than trustworthiness, and Cicero (Brutus, 11) accuses him of giving a fictitious account of the death of Themistocles . But there is no doubt that his history was very popular, and much used by Diodorus Siculus, Quintus Curtius, Justin and Plutarch, and the authors of the Alexander romances . His unnatural and exaggerated style became proverbial . The fragments, some thirty in number, chiefly preserved in Aelian and Strabo, will be found in C . Muller's Scriptores Rerum Alexandri Magni (in the Didot Arrian, 1846) ; monographs by C . Raun, De Clitarcho Diodori, Curtii, Justini auctore (1868), and F . Reuss, " Hellenistische Beitrage " in Rhein . Mus. lxiii . (1908), pp .

58-78 .