The Historians of Late Antiquity

by David Rohrbacher

  Given the number of fourth- and fifth-century histories which depend upon it, the KG must have been one of the few Latin sources to cover the third and early fourth centuries. It seems to have covered the period from the beginning of the empire, around 30 BC, up to at least the Constantinian period, around 340, and maybe up to the reigns of Constantius and Julian in 357. The work cannot have been particularly long, or the similarities between Victor and Eutropius would not have been so obvious. The author demonstrates a particular interest in usurpers. It has been suggested that the KG should be identified with the lost historical work of Eusebius of Nantes, which served as a source for a (lost) series of poems on usurpers written by Ausonius in the 380s (Burgess 1993).

  Victor took the dry narrative of the KG and expanded it with the addition of moralizing commentary and stylistic flourishes. Neither addition has been well received by modern critics. Unlike the sober and flowing narrative of Eutropius, who follows the KG more closely in his imperial section, Victor frequently speaks in the first person in complex and sometimes puzzling asides. In diction and in syntax, Victor is greatly dependent upon the historian Sallust, who was one of the primary authors taught in the schools of late antiquity. Sallust’s pessimistic moralism fits well with Victor’s historical approach, but unfortunately Victor is no Sallust and his work is often affected and artificial (Bird 1984: 90–9). Victor was also familiar with the works of Tacitus, and the introduction to the De Caesaribus purposefully recalls the opening section of Tacitus’ Annales. Tacitus clearly serves as a stylistic model only, however, and not as a historical model, since numerous errors which must derive from the KG would have certainly been corrected if Victor had a copy of Tacitus at hand while he wrote.

  Victor pauses at certain points in his narrative to impose structure upon the history of the imperial period. Den Boer suggests that this periodization, which mirrors that of modern historians of the empire, is one of Victor’s original accomplishments (1972: 28–31). Victor marks important breaks after Domitian, after Alexander Severus, and at the accession of Diocletian. After the assassination of Domitian, Victor remarks that those born in Italy had held the throne up to that point, but afterwards emperors from elsewhere did so as well. “And to me at least … it is perfectly clear that the city of Rome grew great especially through the virtues of immigrants and imported skills” (11.13). Alexander Severus is praised for his intellect, his modesty, and his military and judicial excellence. At the end of his thirteen-year reign, Victor pauses to reflect. The empire had grown enormously between the reigns of Romulus and Septimius Severus, and had reached its peak under Alexander, he claims. Subsequent emperors, more interested in civil wars than wars of foreign conquest, sent the state into decline. “And without discrimination, men good and evil, noble and ignoble, even many barbarians seized power.” Fortune, which had previously been restrained by virtue, entrusted power to the least noble and the least educated (24.9–11). Victor casts a mixed judgement on the recovery of the state at the accession of Diocletian. He was “a great man” with a list of accomplishments in military, civil, and religious affairs. He was additionally looked up to as if he were a father, and his character impelled him to abdicate voluntarily. He was not, however, of noble background, and Victor considers his lack of nobility to be the reason for his demand that he be addressed as “Lord” and for his wearing of silk and jewels. Victor adds that those of humble origin often become excessively proud with power, and that nobility is therefore to be preferred in a ruler (39.7).

  A general picture of Victor’s vision of proper political and social behavior can be derived from his scattered reflections. His approval of nobility, remarked upon in connection with Diocletian, has parallels in other passages. Nerva’s choice of Trajan as a successor is judged as particularly good due to Trajan’s senatorial status (13.1). Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius (15–16) were equally distinguished because of their noble birth. Victor’s criticism of Gallienus partially depends upon that emperor’s (purported) removal of senators from military roles (33.34, 37.6). Yet Victor is not a simple apologist for the nobility and the senatorial order. He portrays Vespasian, a man of humble origins, as one of the best of the emperors (9), and conversely asserts that the noble Galba was cruel and murderous (6). Victor saw the weakened state of the senatorial class not as the result of external pressures but as largely selfinflicted. Victor argues that after the assassination of Caligula, the republic might have been restored if only noble Romans were still performing military service (3.14). Again, after the death of Probus, Victor feels that the policy of Gallienus might have been reversed, and senators returned to leadership in the army, if only the nobles cared for something beyond their leisure and their wealth (37.5).

  The roles of the army and of the imperial administration are recurring concerns in Victor’s work. From the earliest period the army is depicted as barbarized, corrupt, and prone to civil war (Bird 1984: 41–52). The military quartermasters known as actuarii receive special criticism in a digression. They are “worthless, venal, cunning, quarrelsome, greedy” (33.13; Bird 1984: 47–8). Victor, a bureaucrat himself, has similar criticism for other imperial bureaucrats. Emperors who reduced taxation and cracked down on corruption receive praise, such as Vespasian, who restored cities ravaged by the civil wars without burdening farmers (9.9) and Aurelian, whose assassination is blamed on his zeal for good government (35.8). He praises Diocletian for his abolition of the frumentarii, or grain inspectors, who were notorious “secret police” whom Victor likens to the agentes in rebus who performed similar functions in his own day (39.44). To Victor, of course, bureaucratic corruption does not arise from structural causes but from personal ones, as his comments on the reforming prefect Anatolius make clear: “there is nothing good or bad in the state that cannot be changed to the opposite by the character of its rulers” (13.7).

  Victor was a pagan, and he favors emperors who worshipped the traditional gods. He praises Augustus for being extremely devoted to religion (1.5), and he thinks that an example of Diocletian’s excellence is his restoration of ancient cult (39.45). Hadrian was as pious as Numa Pompilius or an ancient Athenian in his attention to religious cult and his celebration of the Eleusinian Mysteries (14.2). Prodigies also play a role in Victor’s history, as when the discovery of female genitals on a pig’s abdomen during the reign of Philip predicted the decadence of generations to come (28.4–5). Victor’s support of traditional Roman religion seems to derive more from his support of tradition than his support of religion. His traditionalism is clear also in his championing of the classical education which allowed him to progress so far in his own career. He frequently compares emperors to figures from Roman antiquity: Hadrian resembled Numa, Pertinax, the Curii (18.1), and Constantius, Pompey (42.22). He judges emperors based on their cultural attainments and digresses upon this criterion after the death of Vitellius. All the early emperors, he states, had been men of great eloquence and learning, and both character and education should be requirements for holding supreme power (8.8). A similar focus on these two criteria can be found in his reflections on the emperor Didius Julianus, whom he (following the KG: Bird 1989) confuses with the legal expert Salvius Julianus. While this man was well educated in the law, his lack of character made him unable to restrain his passions (19). Diocletian and the other tetrarchs were likewise flawed only because of their lack of culture (39.26; Bird 1984: 71–80).

  Victor’s ambitious attempt to expand the KG with his stylized reflections appears to have succeeded in the eyes of one important reader, the emperor Julian, but has found few other champions up to the present day. The difficult style of Victor may have led readers to the easier and far more popular work of Eutropius. Victor’s commentary is often trite and flaccid, and it lacks coherence. Victor does serve as an ideal example of a particular type of Roman in the mid-fourth century, one who has risen from rather humble origins to power in the imperial administration, and perhaps for that reason holds conventional and nos
talgic views on government and morality. The De Caesaribus thus remains as a valuable witness to a view of history and a style of historiography produced by participants in the new class of imperial functionaries.

  Text and translation

  Latin text edited by F. Pichlmayr (1966), Teubner. English translation by H.W. Bird (1994), Translated Texts for Historians.

  3

  EUTROPIUS

  Life

  Eutropius reveals little about his life in his Breviarium, but there are numerous references to Eutropius outside of his work. Unfortunately, the name was popular in antiquity, and a biographer must decide which figures who bear it are the historian Eutropius, and which are not (den Boer 1972: 114–15; Capozza 1973: 84–95; Bonamente 1986: 19–45; Bird 1988a: 51–60, 1992: vii–xviii; Hellegouarc’h 1999: vii–xi).

  Eutropius’ title is given as magister memoriae in the dedication of his work, written in 369 to the emperor Valens. Eutropius’ statement that he accompanied that emperor in his invasion of Persia in 363 suggests that he had also been a member of the imperial administration under Julian (10.16). The Suda describes Eutropius as “an Italian sophist who wrote a historical epitome in Latin and other things.” Another source (pseudo-Codinus, in scr. orig. const. 1.58, p. 144) suggests that he was “epistolographos,” a secretary in charge of correspondence, under the emperor “Constantine,” presumably an error for “Constantius.” This would imply that Eutropius was (to use the Latin terminology) magister epistularum before 361. The fourteenth-century historian Nicephorus Gregoras adds that Eutropius was a contemporary of Valens and Julian, and a pagan.

  Eutropius’ birthplace is unknown. Although he is referred to in the Suda as Italian, and is the author of a work in Latin, he served as magister memoriae in the east and has a Greek name. He certainly demonstrates a familiarity with the Greek language (Bird 1988a: 51–2) and perhaps owned property in Asia (Symm. ep. 3.53). Most scholars deny that the historian Eutropius is also the Eutropius mentioned by Marcellus Empiricus as a medical writer and native of Bordeaux (de medicamentis, pref.), although the identity remains possible. Bonamente (1986: 22–3) points out that there is no evidence of special medical interest or knowledge in the accounts of emperors’ deaths in the Breviarium.

  The following reconstruction of Eutropius’ life requires the identification of the historian with the governmental official who is found, without mention of any historical work, in the legal codes and in the letters of Symmachus and Libanius. The identification is perhaps strengthened by our knowledge that the historian served in important positions under both Julian and Valens, and thus possessed the talents and survival skills which would have allowed him to hold other offices and to correspond with important figures of the late fourth century. The reconstruction must still, however, be understood as tentative.

  To reach the position of magister epistularum before 361 would normally require at least a decade of work as a civil servant. This would place Eutropius’ birth, whether in the east or the west, around 320. Scribal duties included the movement of judicial paperwork from the emperor out to the provincial governors and the reception of similar paperwork from the provinces for the emperor. Scribes would also have handled paperwork which concerned army service and appointments and promotions in the civil service (Jones 1964: 575–6). After the death of Constantius, Eutropius continued to serve under Julian. It has been speculated that he may even have been among those higher-ranking officials who met after Julian’s death to determine a successor (Bird 1988a: 54). Eutropius’ promotion to magister memoriae under Valens between 367 and 369 suggests that he avoided supporting the usurper Procopius in 365. The dedication of the Breviarium can be understood as an offering of thanks to the emperor for his appointment, and the writing of the Breviarium may even be understood as one of Eutropius’ duties in his new position.

  Ammianus and Libanius refer to a certain Eutropius as proconsul of Asia in 371. If this is the historian Eutropius, his career path would mirror that of the historian Festus, who succeeded Eutropius as magister memoriae, wrote his own Breviarium in that position, and then became proconsul of Asia. Festus’ succession in Asia appears to have been the result of intrigue. When a plot against Valens had been uncovered, Ammianius tells us that Festus attempted to falsely involve Eutropius in the plot. Fortunately, the philosopher Pasiphilus refused under torture to implicate Eutropius, and the proconsul escaped death (29.1.36).

  Perhaps the historian Eutropius should also be identified with the Eutropius who moved in important circles in Rome in the late 370s and the 380s. This would suggest that after the death of Valens, Eutropius regained influence in the courts of Gratian and Theodosius. The powerful Roman aristocrat Symmachus corresponded with this Eutropius, in one case attempting to enlist his support on behalf of a governmental position for a protégé. Eutropius would have shared an interest in early Roman history with Symmachus, who was an editor of the works of Livy. This Eutropius was appointed prefect of Illyricum. Numerous laws appear under his name from January of 380 until September of 381. It has been suggested that the laws reveal a merciful character, since some mitigate or remit serious penalties. After his departure from that position, he presumably remained in the east. His correspondence with Symmachus and with Libanius survives from the following decade. In 387, Eutropius received the highest possible honor when he was appointed eastern consul with the emperor Valentinian II as his colleague in the west. He last appears in history as the addressee of a letter from Libanius written in 390 and of letters from Symmachus in the same year.

  Eutropius was almost certainly a pagan, but not a militant one. He faults Julian for his overzealous attacks on Christianity, but points out that he refrained from bloodshed (10.16.3). He is guardedly critical in his judgement of Constantine (Bird 1987: 147–8), and he prudently avoids discussion of religion when he treats the other emperors. His correspondence with the pagan Symmachus omits any mention of Christianity, although opportunities were not lacking (Seeck 1883/1984: cxxxii).

  Work

  The Breviarium of Eutropius is divided into ten books and treats Roman history from Romulus to the death of Jovian. The work takes up seventy-one pages in the Teubner edition, as compared to the fifty-two pages Victor uses to cover only the empire. The first book covers the period from the founding of the city to the sack of Rome by the Gauls around 390, and thus covers the same ground as the first five books of Livy. The second book, which ends with the successful conclusion of the First Punic War, covers the same ground as books 6 to 20 of Livy. Book 3 also parallels the structure of Livy’s history, concluding with the defeat of Carthage in the Second Punic War, which Livy treated in books 21 to 30. Book 4, however, diverges from the Livian model by concluding with the Jugurthine War, passing quickly over the Third Punic War, and completely omitting the Gracchi from consideration.

  The conclusion of the fourth book introduces “the great” Sulla, along with Marius, and their struggle dominates the fifth book. The sixth book features the war between Pompey and Caesar and concludes with Caesar’s assassination. Eutropius makes no secret of his preference for Sulla in the fifth book and Pompey in the sixth (Bird 1990: 88). The history was arranged to place the two civil wars in the central books, at the price of a slight imbalance in the fifth book, which is considerably shorter than the rest.

  The books which cover the empire end at traditional division points. Book 7 concludes with the assassination of Domitian, which Tacitus and Suetonius had also understood to be a significant historical turning point. To begin the eighth book, Eutropius takes advantage of a coincidence to praise his sponsor by dating the transition from the tyrant Domitian to the noble Nerva during the consulship of Vetus and the emperor’s namesake Valens. Book 8 concludes with the death of Alexander Severus, which had been recognized as an important transitional moment by Aurelius Victor as well (Bird 1990: 89) and book 9 begins with Maximinus gaining power. Victor (25.1), and presumably their common source, the KG, note that Maximinus was the
first emperor to seize power without senatorial consent. Eutropius concludes the ninth book with the voluntary retirement of Diocletian, whom he admires, and thus a book which had begun on an ominous note and which covered a difficult period for the empire ends on an upbeat note. The last book brings the story up to the death of Jovian. Eutropius concludes with words very similar to those with which Ammianus concludes his history: “What remains must be related by a greater pen. We do not now so much pass over them as reserve them for greater care in writing” (10.18.3).

  Eutropius’ suggestion that contemporary events require the more elevated prose of panegyric emphasizes the plain and unpretentious style of his work (see Santini 1979; Bird 1992: li–liii; Hellegouarc’h 1999: xlvii–liii). In contrast to Aurelius Victor, Eutropius makes few attempts to allude to historical models or to adorn his prose with rhetorical figures. The work appears as the product of a bureaucrat in several ways. Lexically, Eutropius employs many abstract substantives which are commonly found in legal codes and other products of the chancery (Santini 1979: 5–6). The narrative connections, particularly in the first half of the work, are frequently rudimentary. Simple sentences follow upon each other with simple transitional phrases such as “then,” “next,” or “a little later.” The lack of subordination creates a monotonous feel to the syntax, which perhaps reaches its peak in a description of Trajan (8.4) which contains eleven coordinate participles. Eutropius’ use and reuse of the same phrases and words increase the monotony of the work. Consider the first phrases of the chapters in the first book, which deal with the Roman kings: “Afterwards, Numa Pompilius became king … ” (1.3.1); “Tullus Hostilius succeeded him” (1.4.1); “After him, Ancus Marcius … ” (1.5.1); “Then Priscus Tarquinius took the throne” (1.6.1); “After him, Servius Tullius took power…” (1.7.1). Consider as well, also in the first book, the first phrases of the chapters which describe the early republic: “In the second year also …” (1.11.1); “In the ninth year after the kings were expelled …” (1.12.1); “In the sixteenth year after the kings were expelled …” (1.13.1); “In the following year” (1.14); “In the eighteenth year after the kings were driven out …” (1.15). Eutropius even twice uses the word “exordium,” “beginning,” artlessly in the very first sentence of the work.