Eutropius (historian)

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Eutropius († after 390 AD) was a late antique Roman historian . He wrote a breviary ab urbe condita around 369 AD , in which he presented the history of the Roman Empire from the foundation of the city of Rome to the death of Emperor Jovian (364 AD).

Life

Very little is known about the person of Eutropius. In the Breviarium ab urbe condita (10.16.1) he mentions his participation in the Persian campaign of Emperor Julian's 363 AD. It is unclear whether he was merely a civil companion ( comes ) of the emperor or held a military office; Nino Scivoletto, for example, thought the latter was possible. The dedication of the work to Emperor Valens ( Domino Valenti Gothico Maximo Perpetuo Augusto ) shows that the latter commissioned the breviary . Since Eutropius calls himself vir clarissimus , he belonged to the senatorial class . The title magister memoriae is also preserved in a manuscript , which is why it is assumed that Eutropius held this office under Emperor Valens.

Further statements about Eutropius' curriculum vitae can only be guessed at, especially since his name was not uncommon. Identification with a doctor from Burdigala in Gaul is as uncertain as that with a grammarian mentioned by Priscian . The Byzantine lexicon Suda describes Eutropius as an "Italian sophist " ( Ἰταλὸς σοφιστής ), which suggests a rhetorical training and origin from Italy . The latter is very uncertain and can be inferred from the Latin language of his history. Other evidence suggests that Eutropius enjoyed his rhetorical training in the east of the Roman Empire: Otto Seeck identified the historian Eutropius with a nephew of the rhetor Akakios von Kaisareia mentioned by Libanios ; this Eutropios had studied rhetoric with Akakios as well as with Libanios. If one assumes the identity of the historian with this student of rhetoric and sets his studies in the years 355-361, when Libanios and Akakios were teaching rhetoric at the same time in Antioch on the Orontes , then the year of Eutropius's birth would be about 330 AD. The identity of the historian with Akakios' nephew is further supported by the fact that another student of Libanios, Paianios , bears the same name as the author of the first Greek translation of the Breviarium ab urbe condita, written around AD 379 .

It is possible that Eutropius was magister epistularum in Constantinople under Emperor Constantius II (i.e. 361 AD at the latest) . After his participation in Emperor Julian's Persian campaign and his activity as magister memoriae at the court of Valens, Eutropius could have been proconsul in Asia from 370 AD . In 371/372 AD he was apparently involved in the usurpation of Theodorus and then lost his office, but otherwise remained unmolested.

Otto Seeck also suspected that Eutropius was identical to one of Symmachus' correspondents . Of the eight letters that have been received from Symmachus to Eutropius, one alludes to the success of the Emperor Gratian against the Germanic peoples in AD 379: Symmachus believes that an appropriate ( panegyric ) representation of the victories is more likely to Eutropius than to him myself will succeed. Seeck sees this as an allusion to the end of the breviary ab urbe condita .

Eutropius may have held public offices again after the death of Valens (378 AD): In several laws of the Codex Theodosianus and the Codex Iustinianus from the year 380/381 AD, a Praetorian prefect of the east (in Illyricum ) named Eutropius mentioned. In addition, Eutropius could be identical with the consul of the year 387 AD, who had the honor of holding the consulate together with the emperor Valentinian II .

Works

The Byzantine lexicon Suda says of Eutropius that he wrote a brief history of the Roman Empire “and other things” in Italian . However, only the breviary has survived, and the traces of other works are very vague: the medical and grammatical writings attested by Marcellus Empiricus and Priscian , if they come from the historian, have not survived. Eutropius closes the breviary with a declaration that he does not intend to write about the living emperors, adding: “For the following things must be expressed in a more lofty style; We are not ignoring these now so much as saving them for greater care in writing. ”This is a topical remark that is in accordance with historiography and should not be taken as a serious announcement of a sequel.

The breviary ab urbe condita

Eutropius gave his historical work the title Breviarium from urbe condita , which has come down to us in the (now lost) manuscript from Fulda . The breviary belongs to a genus concise historical works, including the epitome of Florus (2nd century. Chr.), The Historiae abbreviatae of Aurelius Victor (359 n. Chr.) And the Breviarium Rerum gestarum populi Romani of Rufus Festus include . In the preface Eutropius dedicated the work to Emperor Valens, whom he addressed with the title Domino Valenti Gothico Maximo Perpetuo Augusto . Since Valens assumed the title Gothicus Maximus after his campaign against the Goths in 367-369 AD, the time when the breviary was written is dated to 369/370 AD.

Editions and translations

Translations and bilingual editions

  • Harold W. Bird: The Breviarum Ab Urbe Condita of Eutropius . Translated Texts for Historians . Liverpool 1993 (English translation with extensive introduction and commentary).
  • Bruno Bleckmann , Jonathan Groß: Eutropius, Breviarium ab urbe condita. Small and fragmentary historians of late antiquity B 3. Paderborn 2018, ISBN 978-3-506-78916-7 (German translation with philological and historical commentary, the latter only for books 9-10).
  • Fabrizio Bordone: Eutropio: Storia di Roma. Grandi classici greci latini . Santarcangelo di Romagna 2014, ISBN 978-88-18-03023-5 (Italian translation with commentary).
  • Friedhelm L. Müller : Eutropii breviarium ab urbe condita - Eutropius, Brief history of Rome since its founding (753 BC – 364 AD). Introduction, text and translation, notes, index nominum a) geographicorum b) historicorum . Stuttgart 1995.
  • Stéphane Ratti : Les empereurs romains d'Auguste à Dioclétien dans le Bréviaire d'Eutrope. Les livres 7 à 9 du Bréviaire d'Eutrope: introduction, traduction et commentaire . Paris 1996 (French translation of books 7 to 9 with commentary).

Critical Editions

  • Carlo Santini : Eutropii Breviarium ab urbe condita . Leipzig 1979 ( Bibliotheca Teubneriana ): Relevant edition based on the most important manuscripts
  • Hans Droysen (Ed.): Auctores antiquissimi 2: Eutropi Breviarium ab urbe condita cum versionibus Graecis et Pauli Landolfique additamentis. Berlin 1879 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version): Extensive edition with text-critical apparatus, sources and testimony apparatus as well as the Greek translations and the continuations of Paulus Diaconus and Landolfus Sagax

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Eutropius  - Sources and full texts

Remarks

  1. ^ Nino Scivoletto: La civilitas del IV secolo e il significato del Breviarium di Eutropio . In: Giornale Italiano di Filologia . Volume 22 (1970), pp. 14-45, here pp. 36-37 note 48.
  2. ↑ Giorgio Bonamente, La dedica del "Breviarium" e la carriera di Eutropio . In: Giornale Italiano di Filologia . Vol. 29 (1977), pp. 274-297. Objections to the ascription of the title raised Richard W. Burgess: Eutropius "vc magister memoriae?" . In: Classical Philology . Volume 96 (2001), pp. 76-81.
  3. ^ Marcellus Empiricus , De medicamentis , Praefatio 2: cives ac maiores nostri, Siburius, Eutropius atque Ausonius .
  4. ↑ Priscian, Institutiones grammmaticae 1,3,8, in: Martin Hertz , Heinrich Keil : Grammatici Latini . Volume 2, Leipzig 1855, p. 8, lines 19-20: sex ix ab i inchoat. id etiam Eutropius confirmat dicens: una duplex ix, quae ideo ab i incipit, quia apud Graecos in eandem desinit .
  5. ↑ a b Suda, article “Eutropios” ( ε ) 3375: Εὐτρόπιος · Ἰταλός, σοφιστής. τὴν Ῥωμαϊκὴν ἱστορίαν ἐπιτομικῶς τῇ Ἰταλῶν φωνῇ ἔγραψε καὶ ἄλλα . “Eutropius: Italian, sophist. He wrote a concise work of Roman history in the Italian language and other things. "
  6. ↑ Libanios, Epistula 1307.6. Otto Seeck: The letters of Libanius in chronological order . Leipzig 1906, pp. 151–153.
  7. ↑ Patria Konstantinoupoleos I 58, in: Theodor Preger : Scriptores originum . Volume 2, Leipzig 1907, p. 144: Εὐτρόπιός τε ὁ σοφιστὴς καὶ ἐπιστολογράφος Κωνσταντίνου . Emperor Constantine died in 327, which is why one can assume an error in the chronicle.
  8. ^ Inscribed documents from Adolf Schulten : Two decrees of the Emperor Valens on the province of Asia. I. Decree to Eutropius on the common land . In: Yearbooks of the Austrian Archaeological Institute . Volume 9 (1906), pp. 40-61. - Rudolf Heberdey : On the decree of Emperor Valens to Eutropius . In: Yearbooks of the Austrian Archaeological Institute . Volume 9 (1906), pp. 182-192. - Hermann Wankel : The inscriptions from Ephesus . Volume 1.a, Bonn 1979, No. 42 (= inscriptions of Greek cities from Asia Minor 11 ).
  9. ↑ Ammianus Marcellinus , Res Gestae 29,1,36: Eutropius Asiam proconsulari tunc obtinens potestate, ut factionis conscius arcessitus in crimen, abscessit innocuus . Libanios also alludes to the affair in his autobiography ( Oratio 1,159).
  10. ↑ Symmachus, Epistulae 46–53,
  11. ↑ Symmachus, Epistula 47: sed haec stilo exequenda tibi ante alios, cui pollet Minerva, concedimus .
  12. ↑ Otto Seeck: Q. Aurelii Symmachi quae supersunt . Berlin 1883, p. CXXXII.
  13. ^ Eutropius, Breviarium ab urbe condita 10.18.3 (translation by Bruno Bleckmann).
  14. ↑ Giorgio Bonamente, La dedica del "Breviarium" e la carriera di Eutropio . In: Giornale Italiano di Filologia . Vol. 29 (1977), pp. 274-297. - Harold W. Bird: Eutropius and Festus: Some Reflections on the Empire and Imperial Policy in AD 369/370 . In: Florilegium . Volume 8 (1986), pp. 11-22, here 16.
personal data
SURNAME Eutropius
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Eutropia
BRIEF DESCRIPTION late antique Roman historian
DATE OF BIRTH 4th century
DATE OF DEATH after 390