Hydatius from Aquae Flaviae

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Hydatius († around 469) was bishop of Aquae Flaviae ( Chaves in what is now Portugal ) and a late antique chronicler.

Hydatius was probably born in the last years of the 4th century . He came from Lemica , a small town ( civitas ) near today's Xinzo de Limia ( Ourense ) in the Roman province of Gallaecia . Obviously his family belonged to the upper class. Hydatius was wealthy enough to go on a pilgrimage to Palestine in his childhood (as he himself reports) , where he met the church father Jerome around the year 406 .

Following his chronicle , Hydatius, who had been bishop since 427, later wrote his own work, which reproduces the events, especially with a view to Gallaecia and the Suebian kingdom that was establishing itself there, up to the year 468. The work, in which he dated the imperial years and the Olympics and which is also well done linguistically, is of great importance for the history of late ancient Hispania . Especially after 428 it is our main source for the events on the Iberian Peninsula and southern Gaul; In addition, Hydatius tried very hard to include information about the rest of the Roman Empire in the chronicle as far as possible. The focus on Hispania is therefore primarily due to the bishop's limited knowledge of the rest of the empire and not to a conscious decision in favor of regional history.

Hydatius saw himself as a Roman and, as a civilian and Catholic, had little sympathy for the mostly Visigothic and Suebian warriors, who at that time almost completely controlled Hispania and were mostly Arians . Hydatius proudly recalled that Emperor Theodosius I came from Gallaecia ; but now life is marked by wars, oppression and defeat. In fact, the Western Roman government in Ravenna had largely lost de facto control over Hispania since the invasion of the Vandals , Alans and Suebi in 409 (the Visigoths were added later) and was only able to regain it temporarily and locally. In his chronicle, Hydatius railed sharply against the missionary Ajax , who converted the warrior association of the Suebi under their rex Remismund to Arian instead of Catholic Christianity. At the same time, however, his chronicle also refers to rivalries and conflicts within the majority of the Roman population.

expenditure

  • Hydatius: Continuatio Chronicorum Hieronymianorum . In: Theodor Mommsen (Ed.): Auctores antiquissimi 11: Chronica minora saec. IV. V. VI. VII. (II). Berlin 1894 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version ).
  • Hydatius: The Chronicle of Hydatius and the Consularia Constantinopolitana. Edited and translated by Richard W. Burgess . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1993 (now authoritative edition, although Mommsen's edition is still citable and in some cases even preferable).
  • Jan-Markus Kötter, Carlo Scardino (ed.): Chronicle of Hydatius. Continuation of the Spanish Epitome ( Small and Fragmentary Historians of Late Antiquity ). Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2019 (edition with chapter counting different from Burgess, German translation and commentary).

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Hydatius  - Sources and full texts