Abbreviated histories : the case of the Epitome de Caesaribus (AD c. 395)
Jean-Luc Gauville
McGill University: PhD Dissertation, Department of History, (2005)
Abstract
The dissertation offers a critical analysis of the Epitome de Caesaribus, a fourth-century Latin series on the lives of the emperors from Augustus to Theodosius (c. AD 395), and consists of seven chapters defining the text, the genre, its sources, its religious milieu, and its political and social ideas. The political ideas in the Epitome were deeply marked by the influence of the ascetic ideal honouring moderation in drink, food, sleep, sex, and emotions such as anger. Within the fourth-century Roman Empire, the epitomator offers moderate pagan views which show interest about dreams, asceticism, and the providential nature of the divinity. The dissertation proposes to see the Epitome as a literary artefact which, through comparison with contemporary authors, allows one to extract from a bland text ideas found among fourth-century elites in the emperor Honorius’ Italy (395-423).
In 1974, Jorg Schlumberger, the first modern author to devote a book to the Epitome, stated his reason for studying the Libellus de Vita et Moribus imperatorum breviatus ex libris Sexti Aurelii Victoris a Caesare Augusto usque ad Theodosium (the title in sixteenth of the manuscripts of the work including the Gudianus 84), better known as the Epitome de Caesaribus (AD c. 395), – place the last pagan Latin historian in his historical context through an analysis of the epitomator’s historiographical method and his sources. He devoted little energy to consider the political and religious ideas of the Epitome, in which l am particularly interested. l began to be interested in the Epitome through a reading exercise which required translating one of Schlumberger’s articles on the Historia Augusta, used later in my Master’s thesis on Clodius Albinus (c. AD. 140-197).2 This Ph.D. dissertation examines the epitomator’s ideas, and offers sorne new insights into the history of the text and the reconstruction of the sources.
Jean-Luc Gauville
McGill University: PhD Dissertation, Department of History, (2005)
Abstract
The dissertation offers a critical analysis of the Epitome de Caesaribus
, a fourth-century Latin series on the lives of the emperors from Augustus to Theodosius (c. AD 395), and consists of seven chapters defining the text, the genre, its sources, its religious milieu, and its political and social ideas. The political ideas in the Epitome were deeply marked by the influence of the ascetic ideal honouring moderation in drink, food, sleep, sex, and emotions such as anger. Within the fourth-century Roman Empire, the epitomator offers moderate pagan views which show interest about dreams, asceticism, and the providential nature of the divinity. The dissertation proposes to see the Epitome as a literary artefact which, through comparison with contemporary authors, allows one to extract from a bland text ideas found among fourth-century elites in the emperor Honorius’ Italy (395-423).
In 1974, Jorg Schlumberger, the first modern author to devote a book to the Epitome, stated his reason for studying the Libellus de Vita et Moribus imperatorum breviatus ex libris Sexti Aurelii Victoris a Caesare Augusto usque ad Theodosium (the title in sixteenth of the manuscripts of the work including the Gudianus 84), better known as the Epitome de Caesaribus (AD c. 395), – place the last pagan Latin historian in his historical context through an analysis of the epitomator’s historiographical method and his sources. He devoted little energy to consider the political and religious ideas of the Epitome, in which l am particularly interested. l began to be interested in the Epitome through a reading exercise which required translating one of Schlumberger’s articles on the Historia Augusta, used later in my Master’s thesis on Clodius Albinus (c. AD. 140-197).2 This Ph.D. dissertation examines the epitomator’s ideas, and offers sorne new insights into the history of the text and the reconstruction of the sources.
Click here to read this thesis from McGill University
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