Onesicritus

• an historian, a native of Aegina; he was the chief pilot (praefectus classis) of Alexander the Great, Curt. 9, 10, 3; 10, 1, 10; Gell. 9, 4, 3; Plin. 6, 22, 24, § 81.

(Ὀνησίκριτος). A Greek historian, of the island of Astypalaea or of Aegina. In mature years he was a pupil of the Cynic Diogenes, and then accompanied Alexander the Great upon his expedition. By order of Alexander he investigated, with Nearchus, the route by sea from India to the mouths of the Euphrates and Tigris. He afterwards lived at the court of Lysimachus, king of Thrace. During Alexander's life he began a comprehensive history of that personage, which fell into disrepute, owing to its exaggerations and its false accounts of distant lands (Strabo, p. 628). Only scanty fragments of it are preserved.