Epitome de Caesaribus

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Epitome de Caesaribus (Latin: ' Epitome about the Emperors ') is the common but not authentic name for a concise account of the Roman imperial history, which an unknown Pagan author wrote between 395 and 408. The title Libellus de vita et moribus imperatorum breviatus ex libris Sexti Aurelii Victoris is handwritten, but also not authentic . The original title is unknown.

Content and sources

The epitome covers the period from Augustus (Emperor 27 BC – 14 AD) to the death of Emperor Theodosius I (395). It presents the material in 48 chapters as a series of biographies. The linguistic and content-wise undemanding, but important work as a source for some information, is often referred to as a short version of the imperial history of Aurelius Victor from 360/361 . But that is misleading, because only a relatively small part of the material is taken from Victor's writing; only part of the presentation in the chapters from Tiberius to Domitian and in the chapter on Constantine the Great is based on it . The main source is an unknown work, which is believed to be the Lost Annals of Nicomachus Flavianus ; News from this work appears to have been incorporated into other histories such as the lost Leo Spring. Further sources of the epitome are the Breviarium of Eutropius and Enmann's Imperial History . Whether a direct dependency on the lost emperor biographies of Marius Maximus , which reaches as far as Elagabal , can also be assumed is disputed.

The panegyric biography of Theodosius the Great in Chapter 48 may have been written by the author himself as a contemporary. As a non-Christian, he managed to extol this Christian emperor in detail without mentioning his religious affiliation and religious policy in a word.

reception

At the end of Late Antiquity , Johannes Lydos and Jordanes may have used the epitome; in the case of Jordanes, indirect dependence on the epitome of the lost Historia Romana by Quintus Aurelius Memmius Symmachus comes into consideration. In the Middle Ages, the epitome ascribed to Victor was one of the few sources from which chroniclers drew their knowledge of the Roman Empire. The first medieval historian to use them was Paulus Diaconus in his Historia Romana (8th century). At least 19 manuscripts have been preserved. A vulgar Latin version was made in the 10th century. In 1504 Laurentius Abstemius got the first edition in Fano (with attribution to Victor).

Text output

  • Franz Pichlmayr (Ed.): Sexti Aurelii Victoris Liber de Caesaribus. Praecedunt Origo gentis Romanae et Liber de viris illustribus urbis Romae; subsequitur Epitome de Caesaribus. Teubner, Leipzig 1911 (reprinted several times, most recently: Teubner, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-8154-1108-4 ).
  • Michel Festy (Ed.): Pseudo-Aurélius Victor. Abrégé des Césars (= Collection des Universités de France. Série latine 353). Texts établi, traduit et commenté. Les Belles Lettres, Paris 1999, ISBN 2-251-01410-1 (with the first edition of the medieval vulgar Latin version in the appendix).

literature

Web links