Late Antiquity

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Article

Constantius II, Flavius Iulius, Roman emperor  

E. D. Hunt

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Late Antiquity
Third son of Constantine I, first appointed Caesar at the age of seven in 324 ce he became Augustus in the east after his father's death in 337; until 350 he was occupied on the eastern front repelling Persian aggression in northern Mesopotamia. He marched westwards to defeat the usurper *Magnentius at the battle of Mursa in 351, having appointed his cousin *Gallus as Caesar in *Antioch (1). He subsequently (354) had Gallus deposed and executed on suspicion of treachery. Internal and external threats to the security of the western empire led him to elevate Gallus’ brother *Julian as Caesar in Gaul in 355, and together they campaigned against the Alamanni across the Rhine. After a ceremonial visit to Rome in May 357 he moved to the Danube to confront raids of Quadi and Sarmatians, before returning to the east on the news of a renewed Persian offensive in 359.

Article

Constantius III, Roman emperor  

Raymond Davis

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Late Antiquity
Successful against *Constantine III as magister militum of *Honorius, from then on (411 ce ) he effectively ruled the west. Recovering Galla *Placidia from the Visigoths he married her (417); she bore him *Valentinian (3) III. He settled the Visigoths (see goths) in Aquitania Secunda (418).

Article

corruption  

Christopher Kelly

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
30 July 2015
Subjects:
  1. Late Antiquity
Corruption is a difficult term; its use largely a matter of perspective. Indeed, from a modern, western point of view, many practices widely accepted in antiquity seem both immoral and detrimental to good government. But beyond underlining the difference between classical societies and our own, the imposition of expectations or prescriptions derived from contemporary ideals does little to advance our understanding of the past.Charges of corruption (fraud, *bribery, *ambitus, double-dealing, peculation, or the sale of offices) must always be viewed against the norms of the society in which the accusation is made. It should also be recognized that the majority of the surviving classical evidence comes from works whose primary purpose is denigration. Accusations of corruption—along with other vices and depravities—were part of a complex moralizing rhetoric of execration intended to damn an opponent in as many memorable ways as possible. These claims should be accorded the same degree of credibility as invective concerning dubious ancestry, sexual perversion, or physical *deformity.

Article

Cosmas Indicopleustes  

Samuel James Beeching Barnish

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Christianity
  2. Late Antiquity

Cosmas Indicopleustes, fl. 545 ce, *Alexandrian merchant, Nestorian, and argumentative autodidact. His travels included *Ethiopia, but perhaps not the Indies. His self-illustrated Christian Topography (547–9) mixes astronomy, geography, and theology, with some personal observation and humour; it is informative on Ethiopia, India, and Ceylon. Scornfully rejecting classical cosmology and its Alexandrian Monophysite synthesis with *Christianity, Cosmas probably attacked John *Philoponus, who countered in De opificio mundi (557–60). Expounding a rectangular, vaulted universe, the model for the Tabernacle, he combines this oriental, Bible-based cosmology with Greek science. His literalistic exegesis follows the Nestorians of Nisibis and Theodore of Mopsuestia, who was controversially condemned in 544 and 553. Cosmas’ attitude to classical science likewise belongs to contemporary disputes; he shares interests with John *Malalas (e.g. Christian historical teleology), and shows the cultural vitality of his world; his influence was prolonged and widespread.

Article

defensor civitatis  

R. S. O. Tomlin

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Late Antiquity
Defensor civitatis, ‘defender of the municipality’, an office revived by *Valentinian I and *Valens in c.ce 365 to protect *peasants against local landowners. The praetorian prefect was to appoint retired officials without local ties, their duty being to hear minor lawsuits quickly and cheaply. However, by the 390s the defensor was chosen by his town, and seems to have been absorbed into the local network of patronage.

Article

demons in Christian thought  

Gregory D. Wiebe

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
30 June 2020
Subjects:
  1. Christianity
  2. Late Antiquity
  3. Philosophy
The background of early Christian demonology was in both Hebrew and Greek culture. Jews associated the Greek word daimōn with the false gods of the surrounding nations. This was in many ways an intuitive application of the Greek term. It carried the sense of ambivalent divine or semi-divine power, which significant philosophical traditions understood to mediate between humans and gods. The New Testament carries this theme, though its focus is more on Christ’s exorcisms of demons, and his gift of that power to his disciples, with the early church tying the two together in the theological literature, as well as baptismal exorcisms and renunciations of the devil and idolatry.Demons were widely thought to have aerial bodies, which allowed them to perform various marvels, like foretelling the future. They were ultimately taken to be fallen angels with Satan as their leader, though this was not a given early in the tradition. While the Christian understanding was that Christ had defeated them on the cross, this was not taken to preclude the ongoing influence of demons in human affairs prior to the final judgement. Indeed, they constituted a significant moral problem for the Christian life, which absolutely opposed them. For Christians, Christ and the demons were the two sides of the fundamental dilemma of every human soul. The problem of demons manifested differently depending on the context, whether in its encounter with false religion, from idolatry to the persecutions the gods inspired; or in the innumerable tempting thoughts encountered in the pursuit of ascetic discipline.

Article

De rebus bellicis  

Edward Arthur Thompson and R. S. O. Tomlin

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Late Antiquity

De rebus bellicis is an anonymous treatise preserved with the *Notitia Dignitatum, recommending to the emperors (probably *Valentinian I and *Valens, 364–75 ce) plans for reforming the imperial financial policy, the currency, provincial administration, the army, and the law. The author also describes proposed military machines and equipment, of which coloured illustrations survive in the MSS.

Article

Didymus the Blind  

Blossom Stefaniw

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
30 June 2020
Subjects:
  1. Christianity
  2. Late Antiquity
Didymus the Blind (c. 313—c. 398) was a textual scholar and ascetic practitioner. He is not associated with any of the major ascetic settlements around Alexandria and appears to have spent his entire life in or near the city. He is most known for his treatises On the Holy Spirit and On the Trinity (although the authorship of the latter is disputed) and for his biblical commentaries.Although the Council of Nicaea in 325 took place when Didymus was still a schoolboy, controversy and competition by the parties involved continued through Didymus’ lifetime. Didymus himself supported the decision of the Council, which the Alexandrian bishop, Athanasius, had promoted. After Didymus’ death, however, he was no longer associated with the orthodoxy of the day and, because of his reception of Origen of Alexandria, was condemned, along with Origen and Evagrius Ponticus, in connection with the 2nd Council of Constantinople in 553.

Article

Diocletian, Roman emperor, 284–313 CE  

Monica Hellström

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Late Antiquity
  2. Roman History and Historiography
Although not the watershed once considered, it remains justified to treat Diocletian’s reign (284–305 ce) as the beginning of Late Antiquity. Its length allowed for changes to take root, and the introduction of a ruling college of two Augusti (Diocletian and Maximian) and two Caesares (Galerius and Constantius I, also made sons-in-law) deterred civil wars by creating predictable lines of succession. Even so, serious civil conflicts arose in Gaul, Britannia, and Egypt, while peoples across the Rhine and Danuble required constant attention. The most glorified campaign was against Sasanian Persia (295/6–298/299), concluded by a signal victory celebrated at a joint triumph/jubilee in Rome (303). Diocletian enlarged the army but did not radically transform its structure, concentrating on consolidation. The empire retained its integrity, and evidence for permanent imperial residences is lacking, but Nicomedia emerges as an eastern imperial centre. Better substantiated is the subdivision of provinces, which increased the presence and capacity of the bureaucracy. The fiscal reform (287–) supported the war effort, making extraction predictable and effective (if not necessarily heavier). A new, global coinage was introduced in 294, and the Edict of Maximum Prices (301) set maxima for commodities, likely to contain inflation.

Article

dioecesis  

Brian Herbert Warmington and R. S. O. Tomlin

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Late Antiquity

*Diocletian divided Italy and most of the existing provinces into smaller provinces, which he grouped into twelve ‘dioceses’, each administered by a *vicarius. These ‘vicars’ were officially deputies of the praetorian prefects, and facilitated the central bureaucracy's control of provincial governors. The Diocletianic dioceses were Britain, Gaul, Viennensis (see Vienna), Spain, Africa, Pannonia, Moesia, Thrace, Asiana, Pontica, and Oriens. Italy was in practice divided between the vicarius Italiae in the north and the vicarius of Rome in the south. The proconsuls of Asia, Achaia, and Africa were not subject to vicarial authority. The number of dioceses increased when *Constantine I divided Moesia into Dacia and Macedonia, and *Valens detached Egypt from Oriens; the latter were administered by a prefect and a comes respectively. After Constantine, the prefects ruled directly the diocese in which their seats were located.

Article

Diomedes (3), grammarian, late 4th or early 5th cent. CE  

John F. Moreland

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Late Antiquity
  2. Latin Literature
Grammarian, who wrote an Ars grammatica in three books (ed. Keil, Gramm. Lat. 1. 299–529). His work is of value because, though he rarely mentions his sources, he clearly relied upon earlier grammarians who discussed and illustrated the usages of republican authors. Parallels between his work and that of *Charisius seem to indicate that he borrowed from the latter.

Article

Dracontius, Blossius Aemilius  

Helen Kaufmann

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Christianity
  2. Late Antiquity
  3. Latin Literature
Blossius Aemilius Dracontius was one of the most remarkable Latin poets in Vandal North Africa. He lived in Carthage around 500 ce, and combined poetry with a career in law. His major Christian work De laudibus dei (‘Praises of God’) combines biblical narrative with exegesis, doctrine, and autobiography. He also wrote a ‘Plea’ (Satisfactio) to the Vandal king Gunthamund, who had imprisoned him, as well as four short mythological epics (on Hylas, Helen, Medea, and Orestes respectively), two epithalamia, two prefaces, three rhetorical pieces, two epigrams, and two now lost panegyrics. Dracontius’ work stands out for its originality in combining sources, for its creative use of literary forms and rhetoric, and for its character descriptions.Blossius Aemilius Dracontius lived in Carthage around 500ce. Only one event in his life, his imprisonment under Gunthamund, can be dated approximately: the Vandal king ruled from 484 to 496.1 Dracontius’ tripartite name, as well as inscriptional evidence for a (different) Dracontius and further Blossii in North Africa, suggests a North African Roman origin; the title .

Article

dux  

R. S. O. Tomlin

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Late Antiquity
Dux, ‘general’, a title informally applied to republican commanders-in-chief and some emperors, but used more precisely from the Severan period of officers who commanded a ‘task force’ of detachments. *Diocletian made it the formal title (‘duke’) of the commander-in-chief of certain frontier sectors, a professional soldier who absorbed the military duties of the provincial governo (s). This separation of civil and military authority was completed by *Constantine I.

Article

Endelechius, (?)Severus Sanctus  

Otto Skutsch and John F. Matthews

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Late Antiquity

Friend of *Paulinus (1) of Nola and Sulpicius *Severus (so probably Gallic in origin), professor of rhetoric at Rome. The only work preserved is a poem De motibus boum (A. Riese, Anthologia (1894), no. 893), 33 Asclepiadic stanzas, naïve in content but elegant (though not Horatian: several unrelated rhymes) in form. A dialogue between cowherds, it recommends Christianity as a protection from cattle-plague, but whether the plague is actual or fictional is unknown. Endelechius participated at Rome with one Crispus Salustius in a revision of the text of Apuleius' Metamorphoses in 395, and at about the same time received from Paulinus of Nola the text of the latter's panegyric on *Theodosius (2), in which the emperor was praised for his piety.

Article

Endius  

Stephen Hodkinson

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Late Antiquity

Spartan ambassador and *ephor. He was one of the unsuccessful envoys to Athens in 420 bce deceived by *Alcibiades into denying their full negotiating powers. Nevertheless, as ephor in 413/2, he co-operated with Alcibiades in rivalry with *Agis II to ensure that a fleet was sent to *Chios. Relevant here is the hereditary guest-friendship (see friendship, ritualized) between their families dating back to at least c.550. In 410Endius conveyed the Spartan peace offer after the battle of Cyzicus, and probably negotiated the prisoner exchange of 408/7.

Article

Eugenius, Flavius, western usurper, teacher of Latin grammar and rhetoric, 392–394 CE  

John F. Matthews

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Late Antiquity

A teacher of Latin grammar and rhetoric, he was known to *Symmachus (2) and became magister scrinii (see magister memoriae) at the court of *Valentinian II. After the suicide of Valentinian (15 May 392), his Frankish magister militum Arbogast proclaimed Eugenius as Augustus (22 August), but he failed to secure recognition from *Theodosius (2) I. Nominally a Christian, Eugenius sympathized with the pagan revival conducted by his praetorian prefect *Nicomachus (4) Flavianus, and restored the altar of Victory in the senate-house. On 6 September Theodosius defeated him and Arbogast at the river Frigidus and Eugenius was executed.

Article

Eunapius, Greek sophist and historian  

John F. Matthews

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Late Antiquity
Eunapius, Greek sophist and historian, was born at *Sardisc.345 ce and studied there under Chrysanthius, and later in Athens under *Prohaeresius. When he returned to Sardis he entered the circle of local *Neoplatonists, learned theurgy and medicine (he is sometimes described as an ‘iatrosophist’), and mainly taught rhetoric. A fervent admirer of the emperor *Julian and a convinced opponent of Christianity, he wrote to defend his old faith. His History is now lost except for fragments, though much of its character can be recovered from later writers who used it (see below). It continued the work of *Herennius Dexippus, and went in fourteen books from ce 270 to 404; it was finally concluded in about 414. A first edition had however appeared many years earlier, since the work is referred to in the Lives of the Sophists of c.396, and since traces of its influence can be detected in *Ammianus Marcellinus' account of Julian's Persian campaign; some scholars however ascribe the resemblances to Ammianus' direct use of one of Eunapius' sources, Julian's doctor *Oribasius.

Article

Eustathius  

John Francis Lockwood and Robert Browning

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Christianity
  2. Greek Literature
  3. Late Antiquity
Eustathius (12th cent. ce) born and educated in *Constantinople, was deacon at St Sophia and taught rhetoric (and probably grammar) in the patriarchal school until 1178, when he became metropolitan of *Thessalonica, in which position he continued till his death (c.1194). His works of classical scholarship were written before 1178. Henceforward he devoted himself to the practical duties of his spiritual office and to combating the prevailing corruption of monastic life.(1) Classical: Commentary on Pindar, of which only the introduction survives; this gives information on lyric poetry (especially Pindar's) and Pindar's life, and shorter notes on the *Olympian Games and the *pentathlon. The Commentary on Dionysius Periegetes contains discursive scholia, valuable for citations from earlier geographers, historians, the unabridged *Stephanus of Byzantium, and the lost works of *Arrian. The Commentaries on Homer's Iliad and Odyssey (Παρεκβολαὶ εἰς τὴν Ὁμήρου Ἰλιάδα.

Article

Eustathius of Epiphania  

Laura Mecella

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
25 March 2021
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography
  2. Late Antiquity
  3. Roman History and Historiography
Eustathius of Epiphania (modern-day Hama, Syria), late 5th–early 6th ce. He authored a lost summary of universal history in Greek, known only from Evagrius Scholasticus, John Malalas, the Suda, and Nicephorus Callistus Xanthopoulos (14th century). It seems likely that both Evagrius and Malalas had direct access to it, while the Suda knew its existence only from Hesychius of Miletus’s Table of Eminent Writers (Onomatologos). We do not know the details of the link with Nicephorus, who quotes Eustathius in a passage concerning Theodosius II’s reign and Attila’s campaigns against the Romans (Historia ecclesiastica 14.57). A Patmos manuscript attests the existence of Eustathius’s work as late as the 13th century, so such direct access by Nicephorus cannot be ruled out.1 However, Nicephorus’s narrative is based on several different sources, and it is impossible to identify what could have been taken from Eustathius.2 Furthermore, the possibility that many fragments of John of Antioch’s Chronological History preserve a large part of Eustathius’s work has little credibility: according to this hypothesis, both John Malalas and John of Antioch would have drawn widely on Eustathius’s history, copying it extensively.

Article

Eutropius, historian  

Alexander Hugh McDonald and John F. Matthews

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Late Antiquity
Eutropius the historian, probably from Gaul, who took part in Julian's Persian campaign (363 ce) and was *magister memoriae of Valens, published a survey of Roman history (Breviarium ab urbe condita) in ten books. Beginning with Romulus, he reached the Sullan Civil War in book 5, Caesar's death in book 6 and covered the empire to *Jovian's death (ce 364) in books 7–10. The subject-matter for the republic is based in the main upon the Epitome of Livy, for the empire upon the end of the Epitome, and upon an ‘Imperial History’ (see also ammianus marcellinus; historia augusta), closing with personal knowledge of events. The work is short, but well balanced, showing good judgement and impartiality. It was translated into Greek by Paeanius about 380, adapted by Capito of Lycia, and used by *Jerome, *Orosius, *Isidorus (2), and Paulus Diaconus.