Eustathios of Epiphaneia

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Eustathios of Epiphaneia was a late antique historian of the early 6th century AD.

life and work

Little is known about Eustathios ( Greek Εὐστάθιος) himself. He came from Epiphaneia in Syria, was apparently a Christian and the author of a Greek-language world chronicle (or better: world history) in two parts, which, however, has been lost except for very few fragments. Eustathios may have lived around 518, but the exact date of his death is unknown. Based on the information provided by later authors, it can be assumed that he had a good education.

The world chronicle of Eustathios was not a pure chronicle that only offered dry, annalistic historical information, but rather a more detailed historical work. According to the title, it represented an “outline of world history” (χρονικὴ ἐπιτομή) and seems to have been divided into two parts. The first part of the work extended (perhaps from “the beginning of creation”) to the fall of Troy ; the second, more comprehensive part described the time of the mythical hero Aeneas until the reign of the Eastern Roman emperor Anastasios I. The work ended in 502/03 with the conquest of the Roman fortress Amida by the Persians ; possibly Eustathios wrote a special paper on the fall of this fortress, but this is controversial. Eustathios had probably intended to continue the description, but he died before that. According to the Middle Byzantine Lexicon Suda (E 3746), the world history of Eustathios comprised nine books. The source for this was probably the literary lexicon of Hesychius of Miletus , but this statement apparently only relates to the second part of the work, which began with Aeneas. The world history of Eustathios is therefore likely to have been relatively extensive, as the remarks of the 6th century church historian Euagrios Scholastikos regarding the sources used suggest.

Eustathios seems to have processed a number of sources in his work, including Priskos and Zosimos . Apparently he also made an extract from the Jewish Antiquities and the Jewish War of Josephos . Warren Treadgold also assumes that Eustathios also used Helikonios of Byzantium as a source. If the widespread and plausible assumption is correct that the work list of classical profane historians in Euagrios (V 24) was taken from the work of Eustathios, Eustathios has Ephoros , Polybios , Diodor , Appian , Arrian , Cassius Dio , Herodian , Nikostratos von Trebizond , Eusebios and Asinius Quadratus as well as various church historians were consulted. Whether he consulted the works directly, used intermediate sources or only mentioned the authors in his work, however, must remain open.

Evidently Eustathios was interested in chronological questions and was in the tradition of the late antique classicist historians. According to Euagrios, the work was stylistically appealing and also seems to have been quite reliable. It was used by Prokopios of Caesarea (at least this is often assumed in research), Johannes Malalas and Euagrios, and Theophanes probably also used it . However, only fragments are preserved in the Suda , with Euagrios and Johannes Malalas.

Warren Treadgold believes that John Malalas and John of Antioch are largely dependent on Eustathios, but this assumption is very problematic. For Treadgold in any case, the lost work of Eustathios, which he characterized as learned and demanding, is one of the most important early Byzantine historical works of all. But even without much speculative consideration by Treadgold, it is clear that the influence of Eustathios on several later Byzantine historians was quite significant.

literature

Entry in Clavis Historicorum Antiquitatis Posterioris (CHAP) .

  • Dariusz Brodka: Eustathios of Epiphaneia and the end of the Western Roman Empire . In: Yearbook of Austrian Byzantine Studies . 56, 2006, pp. 59-78.
  • Warren Treadgold: The Early Byzantine Historians. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke et al. 2007, ISBN 978-1-4039-3458-1 , pp. 114ff.
  • Warren Treadgold: The Byzantine World Histories of John Malalas and Eustathius of Epiphania . In: International History Review. 29, 2007, pp. 709-745.

Remarks

  1. ↑ See Brodka, Eustathios von Epiphaneia (2006), p. 60; Treadgold, Byzantine Historians (2007), p. 115.
  2. ^ Ludwig Dindorf (ed.): Historici Graeci Minores . Vol. 1, Leipzig 1870, pp. 353-363 ( online ).
  3. ↑ See Treadgold, Byzantine Historians (2007), pp. 114f., Who argues against an earlier date of death, which is often assumed.
  4. ↑ Cf. Brodka, Eustathios von Epiphaneia (2006), p. 60.
  5. ↑ See John Malalas XVI 9.
  6. ↑ See Treadgold, Byzantine Historians (2007), p. 118.
  7. ↑ See the comment in Euagrios Scholastikos , Kirchengeschichte , V 24.
  8. ^ Pauline Allen: An early epitomator of Josephus: Eustathius of Epiphaneia . In: Byzantinische Zeitschrift 81 (1988), pp. 1-11.
  9. ^ Treadgold, Byzantine Historians (2007), p. 115.
  10. ^ Michael Whitby (translator): The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus . Translated Texts for Historians . Liverpool University Press, Liverpool 2000, p. 287, notes 86 and 87.
  11. ↑ Euagrios, III 29.
  12. ↑ See also Treadgold, Byzantine World Histories (2007), pp. 725f.
  13. ^ Treadgold, Byzantine Historians (2007), pp. 116ff .; see also Treadgold, Byzantine World Histories (2007), p. 715ff.
  14. ↑ See the (very critical) review of Treadgold's work by Dariusz Brodka at H-Soz-u-Kult .
  15. ↑ See Brodka, Eustathios von Epiphaneia (2006), p. 78.
personal data
SURNAME Eustathios of Epiphaneia
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Eustathius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Eastern Roman historian
DATE OF BIRTH 5th century or 6th century
DATE OF DEATH 6th century or 7th century