Rufus Festus
Rufus Festus (also Sextus Ruffus ; † 380) was a late antique historian .
Festus held the office of magister memoriae under Emperor Valens (363–378) and probably obtained the rank of vir clarissimus and therefore became a senator . He wrote a short description of Roman history ( Breviarium rerum gestarum populi Roman i ) from the legendary beginnings of the city up to the 360s. Festus, who was not a Christian, seems (like Eutropius before ) to have been commissioned by Emperor Valens to write the thirty-chapter work. He wrote a very simple but quite good Latin. It is believed that, among other things, Enmann's imperial story served as a source.
Although the short work contains some important information and is generally considered to be somewhat more reliable than the similar but linguistically much more demanding work of Aurelius Victor , which was written a little earlier , and although it is particularly preferable to the popular Epitome de Caesaribus from an anonymous author, it will So far, it has been neglected by ancient historical research.
Editions and translations
- John William Eadie (Ed.): The Breviarium of Festus. A critical edition with historical commentary . Athlone Press, London 1967.
- Wendelin Foerster (Ed.): Rufi Festi breviarium rerum gestarum populi Romani . Hoelder, Vindobonae (Vienna) 1874.
- Carl Wagener (Ed.): Festi breviarium rerum gestarum populi Romani . Lipsiae (Leipzig) and Pragae (Prague) 1886.
- Marie-Pierre Arnaud-Lindet: Abrégé des hauts faits du peuple Romain . Les Belles Lettres, Paris 1994, ISBN 2-251-01380-6
literature
- Willem den Boer : Some minor Roman Historians . Brill, Leiden 1972, pp. 173-22, ISBN 90-04-03545-1 .
- David Rohrbacher: The Historians of Late Antiquity . Routledge, London 2002, pp. 57-63, ISBN 0-415-20458-5 .
- Alexios G. Savvides, Benjamin Hendrickx (Eds.): Encyclopaedic Prosopographical Lexicon of Byzantine History and Civilization . Vol. 3: Faber Felix - Juwayni, Al- . Brepols Publishers, Turnhout 2012, ISBN 978-2-503-53243-1 , pp. 9-10.
- Peter Lebrecht Schmidt : Rufius Festus. In: Reinhart Herzog (ed.): Restoration and renewal. The Latin literature from 284 to 374 AD (= Handbook of the Latin Literature of Antiquity , Volume 5). CH Beck, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-406-31863-0 , pp. 207-210
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Festus, Rufus |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Sextus ruffus; Rufus Festus |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Roman historian |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 3rd century or 4th century |
| DATE OF DEATH | 380 |