The Historians of Late Antiquity

by David Rohrbacher

  In the introduction, Festus states that the emperor has requested brevity and that he will therefore proceed in the fashion of moneychangers, who express large amounts of small change in smaller numbers of higher-denomination coins (1.1). This is an introduction not so much to the entire work, but rather to the subsequent chapter, in which Festus makes good on his introductory promise to enable the emperor to not read about the past as much as to count it out. The period from the founding of Rome to the accession of Valens comprised 1,117 years. The regal period included 243 years, the consular period 467, and the imperial period 407. He gives the length of rule of each king, the number of consuls who held office in the republican period, and the number of emperors.

  Festus again summarizes in the third section, in which he lists which regions had been conquered during each of the three major divisions of Roman history. In chapter 4 he turns to a different task, the listing of each province and the date and circumstances of its absorption into the Roman empire. This signals a shift from the historical arrangement of the second and third chapters to a new geographic arrangement of his material. This also reveals the fundamental difference in structure between the work of Festus and that of Victor or Eutropius. Chapters 4 to 14 of Festus travel roughly clockwise from Sicily and Sardinia to Africa (4), Spain (5), and Gaul (6), then from Crete north through Greece, Illyricum, Pannonia, and Noricum (7), and then east through Asia Minor (11–12), to Cyprus and Egypt (13), and finally to Judaea, Arabia, Mesopotamia, and Armenia (14).

  This geographic section is split into a western and an eastern section by Festus’ comment in that he now turns to the jurisdiction of Valens. The western and eastern sections are also distinguished by an unusual feature which Festus includes in the former, but not the latter section. After the sketch of the history of the acquisition of each western diocese, Festus provides a list of its provinces. This is the earliest surviving list of its type, and it may represent the only source of information which modern historians find useful in Festus’ work. An eastern provincial list is lacking, perhaps because it would have been unnecessary at the eastern court. The purpose of the list has been disputed. Eadie (1967: 170–1) suggests that the list rounds off the discussion of the dioceses of the western half of the empire, to which Festus will not return. Den Boer sees the list as “remarkable” and innovative (den Boer 1972: 197). The list, which fits in well with the unadorned nature of the first half of the work, emphasizes the geographic arrangement of chapters 4–9. By presenting the magnitude of Roman strength and conquests in the west, perhaps it is meant to suggest that war in the east is the logical and inevitable result of the growth of Roman power (cf. Peachin 1985).

  After describing the western Roman conquests in a geographically clockwise spiral which concludes in the east, Festus turns to a historical summary of Roman–Persian relations. The introduction to this section (15.1) suggests the instructions Festus had received from Valens. “I know now, illustrious prince, where your purpose leads. You assuredly seek to know how many times Babylonian and Roman arms clashed, with what fortunes the javelin contended with the arrow.” Festus’ use of “Babylonian” for “Persian,” and his synecdoche of the Roman pila, the typical javelin of the Roman infantryman, and the Persian sagitta, the arrow of the Persian cavalryman, are examples of his intermittent attempts at high style. He goes on to state that the Persians will emerge only rarely as victors in his account, and that the Romans would often win because of their superior virtue.

  Festus’ account of Roman policy in the east is too minimalist to shed much light on his opinions or beliefs. Contrary to what one might expect from the official nature of Festus’ account, the narrative mostly provides the unadorned facts. A slightly higher estimate of casualties inflicted by Pompey (16; Eadie 1967: 129) than those found in other sources, and the possible invention of a Persian delegation to Constantine to head off a threatened invasion (26; Arnaud-Lindet 1994: 34 n. 190), are exceptions which prove the rule by their triviality. In discussing the campaigns of Lucius Verus, the younger co-emperor of Marcus Aurelius who had great success in the east, one might expect Festus to exploit the parallels with his patron, Valens, also a junior emperor. Perhaps the slightest hint of this can be seen in Festus’ reference to Marcus and Verus as “pariter Augusti,” “equally emperors.” This stress on the equality of their power can also be found in Eutropius (8.9.2), who operated in a similar political atmosphere as Festus, but not in Victor (16.3), who emphasizes the superiority of Marcus. Festus concludes with a description of the shameful surrender of Persian territory under Jovian. The work thus serves Valens’ purpose of explaining an upcoming war as necessary to avenge a major loss.

  Though Festus’ Breviarium is straightforward and factual, it is not without stylistic adornment (Wölfflin 1904; Baldwin 1978: 212–17). Festus shows a liking for pleonasm, such as “kings seven in number” (2) or “pirates and maritime bandit” (12), and for the poetic plural, found in the phrases “sub amicitiis” (7), and “regna Babyloniae” (26). Baldwin remarks, “It is noteworthy how much he has in common with the Panegyrici Latini,” which can be seen in the combination of literary figures and allusions with occasional late and vulgar usage (1978: 217). Despite the great popularity of the work in the Middle Ages, the work is very much the product of a particular commission for a particular time, a document to be read or circulated at court to establish an official line on the history behind Valens’ coming campaign.

  Text and translation

  Latin text edited by J.W. Eadie (1967). There is no English translation, but there is the French translation of M.-P. Arnaud-Lindet (1994), Budé.

  5

  EUNAPIUS

  Life

  Eunapius was the author of two works which have come down to us in part or entire. The Nea Ekdosis (New Edition) of the History after Dexippus of Eunapius of Sardis is fragmentary, but his other work, the Lives of Philosophers and Sophists, is extant. It is from this second work that we can retrieve some information about the historian’s life.

  Eunapius was a native of Sardis, a city in Asia Minor, and spent most of his life there. The sophist Chrysanthius, a relative by marriage (Lives 477), was one of his early teachers. At age 15 he sailed to the “university town” of Athens (Lives 485), suffering greatly from illness along the way, and he studied there for several years with the Christian sophist Prohaeresius. At Athens he was initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries (Lives 475). He considered a trip to Egypt after his stay in Athens, but his parents compelled him to return home (Lives 493). Returning at age 19 to Sardis (Lives 461), he taught rhetoric in the morning and studied philosophy with Chrysanthius in the afternoon. He witnessed the death of Festus in Smyrna in 380 (Lives 481) but there is otherwise no evidence of his leaving Sardis as an adult. He published part of his history before turning to the Lives, a collection of anecdotal biographies about sophists who were active primarily in the fourth century. After the publication of this biographical work in 399 (Banchich 1984), Eunapius returned to his historical work and published a second edition, with changes and additions.

  Robert J. Penella (1990: 2–4) and Thomas Banchich (1987) have provided a reliable chronology of the major events of Eunapius’ life, correcting the work of Goulet (1980) upon which Blockley (1981) depends. It is apparent that when Eunapius arrived at Athens, his teacher Prohaeresius was banned from teaching rhetoric under governmental sponsorship by the anti-Christian legislation of the emperor Julian (Lives 493). This ban went into effect on 17 June 362 (Cod. Th. 13.3.5), and Julian died on 26 June 363 (Penella 1990: 2). Thus Eunapius must have reached Athens in either 362 or 363, and was therefore born in 347 or 348. He left Athens just after his fourth year there, in either 366 or 367. Since his history covers the period up to the year 404, he must have lived at least until then.

  Eunapius was an accomplished sophist and, like many sophists, his interests extended also into philosophy and medicine. Chrysanthius, his instructor in philosophy, was a student of Aedesius, who
in turn had been a student of one of the greatest Neoplatonic philosophers of the age, Iamblichus. When Chrysanthius was an old man, he requested the presence of Eunapius when doctors were performing a bloodletting upon him (Lives 504–5). Eunapius boasted on this occasion of his skill in medicine, and felt confident enough to interfere when he felt that the doctors were bleeding his mentor excessively. The physician Oribasius, a confidant of the emperor Julian, wrote four books on medicine dedicated to his friend Eunapius, whom he calls “philiatros,” an amateur doctor. This extant work, the Libri ad Eunapium, is designed for an amateur doctor like Eunapius, who was knowledgeable enough to be unsatisfied with guides for laymen but aware that certain medical tasks are suitable only for a professional (Penella 1990: 6–7; Baldwin 1975).

  Work

  The ninth-century Byzantine patriarch Photius describes the history of Eunapius in his Bibliotheca (cod. 77). Most of our fragments of the work are derived from two tenth-century collections of excerpts from historians prepared under the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the Excerpta de Sententiis and the Excerpta de Legationibus. Fragments have also been garnered from entries in the tenth-century Byzantine encyclopedia called the Suda. In addition, much of the central narrative of the historian Zosimus, who wrote at the turn of the sixth century, clearly derives from Eunapius (on this question see Paschoud 1985b: 244–53; Ridley 1969/70; Blockley 1980b, 1983: 97–8). Photius tells us (cod. 98) that Zosimus “did not write a history, but rather copied out Eunapius.” A comparison of the fragments of Eunapius with the narrative of Zosimus suggests that Photius should be taken at his word, although differences between the two arise from Zosimus’ compression of fourteen books of Eunapius into about four of his own. (Zosimus 1.47 or 1.48 to 5.25 covers the same ground as Eunapius’ history.) When Zosimus ceases to use Eunapius as a source and begins to use Olympiodorus, he changes his method of dating and he shows a striking change in attitude toward Stilicho. Zosimus’ ability to present such contradictory positions increases our confidence that he is faithfully recording his sources, rather than substituting his own judgements. Nevertheless, he does make errors in his use of Eunapius, and sometimes presents different opinions and emphases. Other historians who used or may have used Eunapius are surveyed by Blockley (1983: 97–100). None is a significant source of information for our knowledge of the historian.

  Photius tells us that the history of Eunapius was published in two editions. He differentiates between the two by claiming that the first was filled with anti-Christian diatribes, which were partially removed from the second, and that the second was difficult to read because of the gaps left by the removal of passages from the text. The nature of the first edition of the History has generated considerable scholarly debate (Chalmers 1953; Blockley 1971, 1981: 2–5; Barnes 1978: 114–23; Paschoud 1980b, 1985b; Baldini 1984: 75–117). In the Lives of the Sophists, Eunapius refers often to his history (seventeen examples are collected in Paschoud 1985b: 254–6). Since the Lives was composed in 399, and the historical fragments we possess extend to 404, we must have the second edition of the history. The references in the Lives, however, must be to the first edition.

  How far advanced was the first edition of the history when Eunapius wrote the Lives? Lives 480 makes it clear that Eunapius had discussed the death of Valens at Adrianople (in 378). Two passages suggest that the history stretched to a later date. At Lives 472, Eunapius discusses the contemptible behavior of the monks responsible for the destruction of the Serapeum in 391. He adds that he had given information “concerning these things” in his History. The natural interpretation of these words would be “concerning the destruction of the Serapeum,” but Barnes suggests that the phrase could also be interpreted simply as “concerning bad behavior of this sort” (1978: 116). At Lives 476, Eunapius discusses the disasters that struck Greece, which had been prophesied by a priest at Eleusis. He claims that some of these disasters he has already treated in his History, while others he hopes to return to when he continues the work. This latter category includes the invasion of Greece by Alaric in 395/6, and thus the History must not have advanced to that point by the time of the writing of the Lives. The earlier disasters, included in the first edition of the history, may have occurred in the 370s (Blockley 1981: 4; Barnes 1978: 116) or might include the anti-pagan measures of Theodosius after 392 (Paschoud 1980b: 150–2). No definite conclusion is possible, but the natural reading of Eunapius’ words suggests that the first edition was complete before 396 but after 391, perhaps extending to the death of Theodosius in January 395. If this date is accepted, it would mean that Eunapius published his History in 395, spent four years at work on the Lives, which he published in 399, and then returned to the History to correct, extend, and publish it after 404. Some claim that Ammianus was dependent upon Eunapius for part of his narrative of the Persian war, which would require that Eunapius’ work was available to Ammianus before the publication of his work in 391. But even if this dependence is accepted, it could be explained by assuming that Eunapius published his work in stages, allowing Ammianus access to the earlier parts of the history in time for his own (Blockley 1981: 4).

  Fragment 41 is sometimes scrutinized as evidence for understanding the differences between the first and second editions of the history. It has been argued that Eunapius claims in this fragment that, in the first edition, he had only presented information about the origins of the Huns which he derived from ancient writers. In the second edition, however, he has added more accurate oral information which he has recently received. In fact, no reference to the different editions is implied in this fragment. Eunapius simply states that he will juxtapose the less accurate account derived from literature with the more accurate account he has received orally, and provides several verbose and tiresome explanations for the presence of this contradictory material. Eunapius intends only to contrast oral and written information (Blockley 1983: 140 n. 90). Zosimus 4.20.3–4 summarizes Eunapius’ findings: Herodotus said that the Huns came from the Danube, but it also has been claimed, presumably more recently, that they came from Asia.

  Photius (cod. 77) provides a few pieces of information of debatable reliability about the New History. He tells us that the work was divided into fourteen books, and that it began with the reign of the emperor Claudius II at the point where the history of Dexippus had ended. He adds that it concluded with the expulsion of the bishop John Chrysostom and the death of Eudoxia, the wife of the emperor Arcadius. These events correspond to the dates 270 and 404. Photius adds that Eunapius was a pagan who filled his work with vituperation of Christian emperors, particularly Constantine, and with praise of Julian. He judges his style to be elegant, although a bit too rhetorical for history, and marred by occasionally excessive use of neologisms and figures of speech.

  The history of Dexippus, which Eunapius continued, covered all of history from mythical times to Claudius II in twelve books (Millar 1969; Blockley 1971; Buck 1987). Eunapius begins his own history with a long reflection on his predecessor’s work (fr. 1). He praises the beauty of Dexippus’ preface, the detail he provides in the body of the work, and his use of many sources. Dexippus’ intricate chronology, however, he rejects. It appears that Dexippus’ history was organized in an annalistic (year-by-year) fashion, and that he attempted, with varying success, to reconcile several different chronological traditions. Eunapius quotes Dexippus himself as saying that his chronological method had resulted in a work full of errors and contradictions. Eunapius also criticizes the irrelevance of certain details which Dexippus had incorporated, such as the birth years of poets and playwrights. “What do dates contribute to the wisdom of Socrates?” he asks. He emphasizes that, although his work may pick up where Dexippus’ left off, it will be a very different kind of work in its style and organization. Instead of dating by days or years, which he considers unimportant, he plans to date by the reigns of emperors. Other writers are free to worry about the trivialities of exact dating. The kind of arrangement Eunapius used in organi
zing his history by emperor can be seen in fragment 20.1, where he states that, having completed his description of events which took place in the early career of Julian, he will now turn to the acts which Constantius II undertook at the same time, despite the repetition that this will entail.

  Eunapius declares that detailed chronology distracts the reader from the true goal of history, the portrayal of moral models for the reader to follow or to shun. Concern for dates is proper for accountants and astrologers, he suggests, but not for his audience of well-educated sophists (Breebaart 1979). Of course, other, less lofty reasons for this contempt for chronology can be suggested. Eunapius’ lack of competence in dealing with dates is demonstrated by the following example. To support his contention that it is impossible and useless to determine chronology by the year and the day, he bizarrely refers in the first fragment to a specific dispute discussed by Thucydides (4.122). Thucydides writes that two days after the Athenians and Spartans had signed a peace treaty, the city of Scione had revolted against Athens, but that the Spartans had claimed falsely that this revolt had occurred before the treaty, not after. Eunapius asserts that Thucydides’ uncertainty about the date of the revolt proves the futility of chronology, but in reality Thucydides is perfectly clear about the date and expresses no uncertainty at all (Paschoud 1989a: 205). Eunapius’ disdain for chronology may further be attributed to his desire to manipulate the order of events in order to make polemical points. Paschoud lists three significant errors of chronology in the Eunapian section of Zosimus. Zosimus erroneously states that Constantine converted to Christianity after putting his wife and son to death, that Gratian refused the title of pontifex maximus at the start of his reign, and that Theodosius abolished pagan rites after his defeat of Eugenius (1989a: 210). All three of these “errors” further Eunapius’ anti-Christian polemic, and all three would be revealed as false if they were dated by year rather than by reign.