CTESIAS, a Greek physician and historian, who flourished in the 5th century b.c. He was born of an Asclepiad family at Cnidus in Caria, and was in the early part of his life physician to Artaxerxes Mnemon, having, according to Diodorus Siculus, been taken prisoner of war. He was the author of a treatise on rivers, another on the Persian revenues, a history of India, which is only of value as recording the beliefs of the Persians about India, and, most famous of all, a history of Persia—the Persica, written ia opposition to Herodotus, and professing to be founded on tho Persian royal archives. Of his two histories we possess abridgments by Plιotius, which have been published by Stephens (Paris, 1557-1594). As to the worth of the Persica there has been much controversy, both in ancient and modern times. Its chief modern defenders have been Frcret, in the Mémoires de Γ Académie des Inscriptions, vol. v., and Bähr, in his Prolegomenon to his edition of what has come down to us of the works of Ctesias (Frankfort, 1824). Aristotle rejected the testimony of Ctesias, which is opposed to that of the Jewish Scriptures, of the Persian historian Berosus, and of recently discovered cuneiform inscriptions. See Rawlinson’s Herodotus (vol. i. pp. 71-74).