The Historians of Late Antiquity

by David Rohrbacher

  Other elements of the history are formulaic, and thus perhaps typical of a historian who is used to the hackneyed and repetitive writing typical of official documents. He is given to numbers and lists: four wars of Sulla (6.1) and four campaigns of Domitian (7.23.4), four theaters of battle in the Second Punic War (3.13.1), three triumphs in the year 146 (4.14.2) (Hellegouarc’h 1999: xliii–xlv). He dutifully records which emperors were voted divine honors by the senate upon death. His use of the impersonal passive has been seen as typical for a bureaucrat who is trained to write objectively and to see people as cogs in the machinery of the empire (Santini 1979: 9).

  Hellegouarc’h emphasizes the difference in style between Eutropius’ treatment of the royal and republican periods and his treatment of the imperial period. While the first part is organized in annalistic fashion, the second part is organized biographically (1999: xxii–xxiii). Pompey, Caesar, and Octavian serve as transitional figures in this arrangement, since the sections devoted to them incorporate more biographical information than had appeared in earlier books, but less than would appear in later books. In the last book, where Eutropius draws upon his personal experience to describe contemporary emperors, he provides more detail. The different approaches to the arrangement of the material result from the changing sources upon which Eutropius drew.

  Livy, and perhaps an epitome of Livy, is the primary source for the royal and republican sections of Eutropius. The Suda (under the entry “Kapiton”) describes Eutropius as an epitomator of Livy, and many modern studies have demonstrated the accuracy of this description for the first six books of the work (Capozza 1962/3, 1973; Scivoletto 1970; Ratti 1996: 24). This dependence is clear both in the annalistic structure of the first books and in some of the phrasing and judgements. Eutropius’ dependence upon Livy for the history of the royal and republican periods does not, however, result in mere compression and reproduction of the earlier historian’s work. Rather, the act of compression lends different emphasis to certain events, and results in the omission of others. Eutropius also brings a distinctly fourth-century approach to his interpretation of the earlier periods. His criterion for evaluating the kings, for example, is colored by their superficial similarities to the autocratic emperors of his own day, and his evaluations of the republican senate and consulship are influenced by his understanding of the vastly different late antique institutions (Capozza 1973).

  Book 7, which covers the emperors from Augustus to Domitian, contains information and phrasing which was clearly derived from the biographies of Suetonius. Eutropius included other information, however, which was not found in Suetonius, but which Aurelius Victor also included. These commonalities between Eutropius and Victor, and particularly their shared errors, formed the basis of the hypothesis of their shared source, “Enmann’s Kaisergeschichte,” or the KG (Ratti 1996: 25–30). Although some scholars have denied the existence of this work (which is more fully described in the chapter on Aurelius Victor), the evidence for its existence and influence is substantial. For example, although Eutropius often provides information which is identical to that of Victor, he also occasionally is more accurate or more specific than Victor. Since Victor wrote before Eutropius, it is clear that a shared source could be the only explanation (cf. Ratti 1996: 33–45). The KG was arranged biographically, as are Eutropius’ books 7–9. Eutropius also seems to mirror the KG by including similar details in each biography: the emperor’s family background, his personality and actions, the date of his death, the length of his reign, his age at death, and whether he was voted divine honors by the senate (Hellegouarc’h 1999: xxxiii).

  While Eutropius seems to have used some other sources beyond Livy and the KG, their influence appears to have been limited. The Breviarium was presumably written in a quick and workmanlike fashion which did not demand extensive research or pretensions to scholarship. It was, rather, written by a courtier in service to the emperor for official state purposes. Thus it is not surprising to find that one other source upon which Eutropius may have drawn directly or indirectly was the self-promoting testament of the emperor Augustus known as the Res Gestae Divi Augusti (Ratti 1996: 47–68).

  Eutropius’ general approach to history is traditionalist. He favors the senate, the expansion of the empire, and powerful military leaders. A senator himself, the historian emphasizes the wisdom and importance of the senate in his account of the republican period. Of sixteen mentions of the senate in the first four books, for example, fifteen are positive (Bird 1988b: 65). Eutropius also favors Sulla over Marius (5.3–4), and Brutus over Caesar (6.25). In later books, Eutropius judges emperors in part based on their relationships with the senate. The abominable Nero “killed a large part of the senate and was an enemy to all good men” (7.14.1) and Domitian “killed the most noble from the senate” (7.23.2). But during the beneficent reign of Trajan, only one senator was condemned, and the condemnation took place at the direction of the senate itself (8.4). Eutropius’ habit of ending many imperial biographies with a notice of consecratio, the vote of the senate to confer divinity upon favored emperors after death, may likewise be interpreted as emphasizing senatorial power.

  The Breviarium of Eutropius focuses almost entirely on military affairs. Both Eutropius and Festus write at the behest of Valens in preparation for a major eastern campaign, and their concentration on military glory in their official works may be compared to the work of Aurelius Victor, who is much more leery of military power. A preoccupation with military success can be seen in Eutropius’ diction: Hellegouarc’h counts thirty examples of triumphare and twenty-one of triumphus in the work (1999: xl). The Breviarium lacks significant information on economic, cultural, or institutional history. This helps to explain the almost complete lack of information on the “Struggle of the Orders” which marked the early republic, and the complete erasure of the career of the Gracchi. Republican history is reduced to events which demonstrate the supremacy of the senate and which chronicle the military expansion of the state. Eutropius treats the imperial period in a similar way, judging emperors largely on their military successes. He portrays Augustus primarily as a military conqueror (7.9). By contrast, bad emperors are not warriors, like Caligula, who “undertook a war against the Germans, but after entering Suebia, made no effort” (7.12.2). Eutropius’ bellicose attitude is clear in his statement that Trajan widely extended the borders of the empire which, after Augustus, “had been defended rather than honorably enlarged” (8.2.2). He also makes military discipline a prominent theme, perhaps because Valens himself was a severe disciplinarian (Amm. 31.14.1; Bird 1990: 91–2). The conclusion of the work dwells on the humiliation of Jovian’s loss of territory in the east, which Eutropius sees as unequalled in more than a thousand years of Roman history (10.17.2). This should be understood as a rallying cry for the looming Persian campaign of Valens, and the final conclusion to the work, “we reserve these matters for a more ornate composition” (10.18.3), looks to a panegyric to praise the emperor’s military success to date and predict glory in the campaign to come.

  The ideology of the Breviarium is wholly conventional, as one might expect from its quasi-official nature, and Eutropius’ concerns can be readily paralleled in other fourth-century works. The historian praises good relations between the emperors and the senatorial aristocracy, which may be achieved by emperors who recognize their shared interests with the local and bureaucratic elites. Emperors should be reminded of the need for civilitas, the “civility” which restrains them from excessive punishments and encourages them to support the established leadership of the cities (Scivoletto 1970). In turn, aristocrats are encouraged to support the glory of the state and, in particular, glorious military expansion. In a world in constant danger of civil war and of alienation between civilian and military leaders, Eutropius’ work draws upon the past in the hope of unifying contemporaries in support of foreign conquest.

  Text and translation

  Latin text edited by C. Santini (1979), Teubner. English translati
on by H.W. Bird (1993), Translated Texts for Historians.

  4

  FESTUS

  Life

  The brief and impersonal work of Festus contains little information about its author. Festus must have been considerably older than the emperor Valens, the patron of the work, since he refers to himself as very old (30.1; Arnaud-Lindet 1994: vii–viii). Since Valens died in August 378, when he was nearly fifty years old (Amm. 31.14.1), Festus must have been born in the period roughly before 318. In the last sentence of the work, the comments of Festus about a god (deus) and a divinity (numen) have been interpreted as the words of a pagan distinguishing gracefully between his beliefs and those of the Christian emperor (e.g. Eadie 1967: 9 n. 2). This is not, however, a necessary reading of the words, and Baldwin (1978: 203) provides numerous parallel examples of such panegyrical writing in the fourth century.

  Various manuscripts provide the additional information that the author’s name was Rufus or, alternatively, Rufius Festus. A single manuscript identifies the author as holder of the position of magister memoriae, the same position held by Eutropius. Although this evidence is not conclusive (Baldwin 1978: 199), we do know that a man named Festus served in that position sometime between 365 and 372 (the work itself was written in 369 or 370). Scholars generally identify the historian, whose work was written in 369 or 370, with this imperial official Festus who was from Tridentum, a city in northern Italy.

  Festus of Tridentum is mentioned with disgust by three pagans, Ammianus Marcellinus, Libanius, and Eunapius. Ammianus says that he was of lowly birth (29.2.22–8). Ammianus is less interested in Festus himself than in using the historian to further blacken the character of Maximinus, the official whom Ammianus decries for his role in a series of sorcery trials at Rome. Therefore Ammianus praises Festus’ early career, when he served as consularis Syriae (in 365 or 368) and magister memoriae (in 370). When Festus became proconsul Asiae, however, Ammianus claims that he fell under the sway of the evil Maximinus. While Festus had at first opposed Maximinus’ despotic behavior, Ammianus says, he soon saw it as a means for career advancement and began prosecuting his subjects for sorcery. Among his victims were the philosopher Coeranius and numerous other innocents who, far from practicing malicious magic, were persecuted for simply performing simple charms for their health.

  Unlike Ammianus, Libanius does not present a Festus who is corrupted later in his career, but rather portrays him as bloodthirsty from the beginning when he took the position of consularis Syriae. Libanius describes him as an idiot and a man who knew no Greek (the two being synonymous for the Latin-loathing Libanius), and accuses him of plotting with Libanius’ enemy Eubulus in return for a luxurious feast (or. 1.156). Festus managed to disrupt Libanius’ public orations, but he failed in his attempt to destroy the orator by connecting him to the supposed crimes of a certain Martyrius. The prosecution of this otherwise unknown man is reminiscent of the prosecutions that Ammianus described as common during Festus’ administration as proconsul. Martyrius’ weakness for wrestling apparently led him to dabble in magic in an attempt to hinder a competitor, and Libanius claims that Festus, in a private meeting with the emperor Valens, attempted to link both him and the historian Eutropius to this sorcery.

  Festus is attacked even more harshly by Eunapius, who portrays him as madman with the soul of a butcher, and a persecutor of pagans (Lives 480–1). Eunapius blames Festus for many beheadings, including that of the philosopher Maximus of Ephesus, the friend of Julian. Eunapius also relates the story of the death of Festus, which he claims to have witnessed himself. After leaving office, he married a wealthy woman of Asia, and decided to try to pacify the enemies he had made through his conduct by holding a lavish banquet for nobles and office-holders. After many had agreed to attend his party, Festus made the error of entering the temple of the goddess Nemesis, although he was not a pagan and had punished pagans with death. He described to those in the temple an ominous dream he had had in which his victim Maximus had dragged him by the neck to be judged by Pluto. Although Festus followed the advice of those in the temple and offered prayers to Nemesis, on his way out of the sanctuary he slipped on the pavement and fell on his back, expiring soon after. Eunapius found this end to be a particularly satisfying example of the justice of the gods.

  Work

  Momigliano claimed that the work of Festus was an epitome of the work of Eutropius (1963: 85–6). He suggested that after the magister memoriae of 369, Eutropius, had produced his Breviarium, the ignorant emperor Valens found it too complex. Thus, he asked for an abridgement of the abridgement from his magister memoriae of the following year. This theory is partly based on the title of the work, which one manuscript preserves as Breviarium Festi De Breviario Rerum Gestarum Populi Romani (Eadie 1967: 13).

  Momigliano, and den Boer following him (den Boer 1972: 173–4), interpreted the title to mean “a breviarium of the breviarium (of Eutropius).” This is in contrast to the earlier theory of Wölfflin (1904: 72), who interpreted the phrase to mean “the breviarium to surpass all breviaria,” like the phrase “king of kings.” Because, on the one hand, Wölfflin’s suggestion is linguistically impossible, and on the other, Festus’ work is clearly not an abridgement of Eutropius’ work, a different explanation for the title is required. One is provided by Arnaud-Lindet (1994: xv). He suggests that the actual name of the work was De Breviario Rerum Gestarum Populi Romani (“[book] concerning a summary of the history of the Roman people”) and that the first two words were originally added by a copyist after the “incipit” (“here begins the breviarium of Festus”) and then erroneously considered to be part of the original title. There is thus no reason to adhere to Momigliano’s untenable thesis.

  At the end of his work, Festus laments his inability to rise to the level of eloquence which a full narrative history of the deeds of Valens would demand. He prays that the gods will grant the fortune necessary for the emperor to subdue Persia in the manner in which he has subdued the Goths. The Gothic victory took place in 369 (Amm. 27.5), so the work must have been published after that date. Mommsen suggested that the work must have been completed in 369 as well, since the list of provinces which Festus provides omits the province of Valentia, which was created in 369 and named for Valentinian. This date is not necessarily certain, however, since scribal error may have caused the name to be lost, or Festus may have used an older list which did not contain the newest division (Baldwin 1978: 197–9). Since Ammianus suggests that Festus was magister memoriae in between his service as consularis Syriae (either in 365 or 368) and as proconsul Asiae (from 372 to 378), it would not be inconsistent with the evidence to imagine the work was composed in late 369, when he succeeded Eutropius in the position.

  Festus dedicated his production to the emperor Valens, who had requested its production, as several passages of the work make clear. Various forms of the fulsome address required of court officials to the emperor appear throughout, such as “most glorious emperor” (1.2), “your clemency” (1.1), and “your eternity” (2.1; Eadie 1967: 2 n. 2). It is certain that the intended recipient was the eastern emperor Valens, rather than the western emperor, his brother Valentinian, since in the tenth chapter Festus describes how the eastern provinces fell under “your rule,” “sceptris tuis” (10.1). In addition, the victory over the Goths praised by Festus in chapter 30 (30.2) must refer to Valens’ recent conquest of Athanaric. No credence need be given to the suggestion that the existence of Valentinian’s name at the beginning of one line of the manuscript tradition represents a second dedication; rather, the name is best explained as an incorrect scribal expansion of an original abbreviation “VAL” (cf. Eadie 1967: 3–4).

  The work itself is less a summary of Roman history than a piece of official propaganda prepared by the court to lay the foundations for Valens’ Persian expedition. A large majority of the work pertains to the history of Roman–Persian relations, and of the part which does not, a majority pertains to Roman foreign policy. In length it is more a
pamphlet than a book, and it does not attempt to provide a succinct history of Rome as do the breviaria of Victor and Eutropius.

  The work was composed very rapidly and the historian used few sources for its composition. Several close linguistic parallels suggest that the information in the republican section of the work was derived from an epitome of Livy, perhaps one which served as a source for the extant Periochae of Livy. The abbreviated history of Florus may also have been used. Parallels between Festus, Eutropius, and the Historia Augusta in the imperial section of the history reveal that Festus made use of the Kaisergeschichte. The numerous errors in the work suggest that Festus was not always careful in using his sources, and that he may also have relied upon his memory for some information (Eadie 1967: 70–98; Arnaud-Lindet 1994: xxi–xxiv).

  The work can be divided into an introduction (1), a numerical division by years of all of Roman history into the regal, republican, and imperial periods (2), a quick survey of which provinces were conquered during the three periods (3), the conquest of the western provinces (4–9), the conquest of the eastern provinces (10–13), a history of Roman warfare against Persia (14–29), and a conclusion encouraging Valens’ designs against Persia (30).