AD 41) was a Roman historian, probably of the 1st century, author of his only known and only surviving work, Historiae Alexandri Magni, "Histories of Alexander the Great", or more fully Historiarum Alexandri Magni Macedonis Libri Qui Supersunt, "All the Books That Survive of the Histories of Alexander the Great of Macedon."

The earliest opportune moment was the year 167, when the campaign of the emperor Marcus Aurelius against the Parthian Empire had failed, and the returning troops were in bad morale and infected with the Antonine Plague.

Avidius Cassius, commandant of Legio III Gallica, returning veterans, was promoted to Consul.

Pratt conjectures that the manuscript in storage, by this time damaged and partly destroyed, was published finally, accounting for the previous lack of references to it.

[2] In essence he reasserts the policy of Augustus, which casts the empire as the restoration of monarchy for the suppression of the civil wars fomented by the contention of powerful noblemen vying for control of the Republic.

It was formed by the eastern satrapies recusing themselves from Greek overlordship and restoring a purely Iranian empire.

Baynham summarizes the argument of Julius Nützell that the crisis might be the night of 24/25 January, 41 AD, following the assassination of Caligula on that day.

[4] The upper limit is provided by a passage that mentions the "continued prosperity of Tyre under Roman dominion.

Baynham says: "many modern scholars now accept a date in the middle to late part of the first century A.D. as a likely floruit for Curtius.

Due to the frequently used institution of adoption, people of the name Curtius (or female Curtia) might not be consanguineous.

On Curtius' return, a book such as the Historiae unless politically incorrect would have impressed the scholarly Claudius.

Tiberius already had been an admirer before the book: he said that Curtius Rufus was his own ancestor; i.e., a self-made man.

Tacitus hints that Curtius was of low birth, possibly the son of a gladiator.

The story is only compatible with the name if one assumes adoption, which Tiberius could easily have arranged, If Curtius took office at the minimum age of 25, and Tiberius made his comment in the year of his own death, Curtius would have been 19 or younger when described as a self-made man.

[9] Historiae survives in 123 codices, or bound manuscripts, all deriving from an original in the 9th century.

[11] Painters, such as Paolo Veronese and Charles Le Brun, painted scenes from Curtius.

These men were participants in the Alexander story and therefore are counted as eyewitnesses, or primary sources.