Eusebius of Nantes

Eusebius of Nantes (lat. Eusebius Nanneticus ) was a late antique historian who lived in the 4th century.

Eusebius of Nantes wrote a historical work that has not survived to us, which the late Roman poet Ausonius used for a work that he wrote, which was also lost. Otherwise nothing is known about the person of Eusebius. He was probably from Nantes in Gaul and was perhaps related to Ausonius.

The work of Eusebius probably took the Roman usurpers into account quite strongly , which was rather unusual in the context of Roman historiography; Ausonius' poetry, which is based on Eusebius, is sometimes called Tyranni , a term that was common at the time for the illegitimate emperors. Eusebius probably wrote his work around the middle of the 4th century, at least before 380. It will hardly have been too extensive and was probably written in Latin. In Richard Burgess' view, it might date back to 357.

Burgess further assumes that the work of Eusebius is identical to the so-called Enmann's Imperial History (EKG), but this cannot be proven. Of course, it cannot be ruled out that Eusebius, like so many other authors of the 4th century, only resorted to the EKG, which was the basis of a large number of breviaries .

Before Burgess, Roger Green came to other conclusions: He equated Eusebius of Nantes with a Eusebios who wrote a now-lost Greek historical work that described the time from Augustus to Carus . However, it is rather unlikely that Eusebius of Nantes, who probably wrote in Latin, is identical to this Eusebius.

Recently Eusebius was even suggested by Nantes as a possible author of the Historia Augusta . According to this theory, Eusebius first wrote the EKG and then expanded it into the aforementioned collection of biographies.

literature

• Bruno Bleckmann , Jonathan Gross: Historians of the Imperial Crisis of the 3rd Century I ( Small and fragmentary historians of late antiquity ). Paderborn 2016, ISBN 978-3-506-78490-2 , pp. 143-149.
• Richard W. Burgess : Principes cum Tyrannis. Two Studies on the Imperial History and its Tradition . In: The Classical Quarterly . Volume 43, 1993, pp. 491-500.
• Richard W. Burgess: On the Date of the Imperial History . In: Classical Philology. Volume 90, 1995, pp. 111-128.

Remarks

1. ↑ This emerges from a list of the works of Ausonius made by Giovanni Mansionario in 1320, see Burgess (1993), p. 495.
2. ↑ Burgess (1993), p. 495, note 21.
3. ↑ Burgess (1993), pp. 496f., Who opposes Roger Green's interpretation (see remarks at the end of the article).
4. ↑ General Burgess (1993); see also Burgess (1995), summarized on p. 128.
5. ↑ This is also clear to Burgess, one of the currently best experts on the EKG: “This identification cannot, of course, be proven - nothing can be proven on such meagre evidence - but unless there is evidence to suggest that Eusebius was someone else, the natural hypothesis is that Eusebius Nanneticus was the author of the KG. ” Burgess (1993), p. 499. Gerald Kreucher, for example, is skeptical about this identification: The emperor Marcus Aurelius Probus and his time . Stuttgart 2003, p. 18 with note 40.
6. ↑ Considering this, but rather rejecting it: Burgess (1993), p. 498f.
7. ↑ So among others Aurelius Victor and Eutropius , see the explanations in the EKG article.
8. ↑ Roger Green: Marius Maximus and Ausonius' Caesares . In: Classical Quarterly . Volume 31, 1981, pp. 226-236; against this argued, among others, Burgess (1993), p. 496f.
9. ↑ So Peter Lebrecht Schmidt in an article that will be published soon, see Markus Sehlmeyer: History images for pagans and Christians: Res Romanae in the late antique breviaries . Berlin 2009, pp. 289f. and 303f.