The Lost History of Sextus Aurelius Victor
Justin Stover, George Woudhuysen
- Demonstrates for the first time both the contemporary and lasting influence of Victor’s historiography
- Discusses a wide range of both canonical and neglected authors and texts, including Sallust, St Jerome, Ammianus, the Historia Augusta, Eunapius and Julian
- Provides an up-to-date account of the mechanics of abbreviating texts in late antiquity, an important and relatively neglected subject
- Re-reads and re-examines in detail two short imperial histories of the fourth century, the Caesares and the Epitome de Caesaribus
- Based on primary sources, including manuscripts and newly discovered evidence for Victor’s text
- Resolves some of the enduring mysteries of later Latin literature
- Has implications impacting many different areas of Late Roman and early medieval studies, including political, social, cultural, literary and legal history, as well as historiography
This book rediscovers a lost history of the Roman Empire, written by Sextus Aurelius Victor (ca. 320-390) and demonstrates for the first time both the contemporary and lasting influence of his historical work. Though little regarded today, Victor is the best-attested historian of the later Roman Empire, read by Jerome and Ammianus, honoured with a statue by the pagan Emperor Julian and appointed to a prestigious prefecture by the Christian Theodosius. Through careful analysis of the ancient evidence, including newly discovered material, this book re-examines the two short imperial histories attributed to Victor in the manuscripts, known today as the Caesares and the Epitome de Caesaribus, and discusses a wide range of both canonical and neglected authors and texts, from Sallust and Tacitus to Eunapius and the Historia Augusta.
By providing a new account of the original scope and scale of Victor’s Historia, this book revolutionises our understanding of the writing of history in late antiquity. Not only does it have profound implications for the transmission of Classical texts in the Middle Ages and the history of Classical scholarship, but it also solves some of the enduring mysteries of later Latin literature.
PART ONE. THE LOST HISTORIA
1. The Historian Victor
2. The Works Attributed to Victor
3. The Genre of Epitome
4. The Nature of Victor’s History
5. Victor’s Readers
Conclusion to Part 1. Two Editions of Victor’s Historia
PART TWO. LATE ROMAN HISTORIOGRAPHY RECONSIDERED
6. Enmann and the Kaisergeschichte
7. Ausonius and Marius Maximus
8. The Historia Augusta
9. Ammianus Marcellinus and Nicomachus Flavianus
10. Greeks and Latins
Conclusion: Victor the Historian
Appendix. The Text of Victor
List of Works Cited
Maps of Victor’s World
Index of Manuscripts Cited
Index of Sources
General Index
This is a brilliant book and an extraordinary achievement. It is the sort of thing for which the phrase paradigm-shift should be reserved. It’s a long book, and a technical one, but exceptionally well designed and thus easy to follow. The authors have thrown a grenade into their niche and none of its residents, living or dead, come out unwounded.
The landscape of late antique historiography is revolutionized as a result of this tour de force. Stover and Woudhuysen write engagingly and clearly, and the reader is masterfully led through a cumulative argument which has the air of soothing inexorability that the finest empirical demonstrations achieve. [...] the account they have put forward will be the necessary starting point of any future investigation of late antique historiography, including those that will be heading in very different directions; and their sharp and engrossing discussion will prompt new interest in the topic from a number of quarters, and will encourage scholars who have not so far worked in this area to dip into waters that require fresh, earnest, and energetic exploration.
There are few books that live up to the claims made on their back cover, but The Lost History of Sextus Aurelius Victor by Justin Stover and George Woudhuysen surely is a “radical rewriting of the history of fourth-century Latin literature.” [...] By showing that Aurelius Victor was the author of a highquality, multivolume history of the empire until his own day, this brilliant book by Stover and Woudhuysen lays the foundation stone for a new understanding of fourth-century Latin historiography.
- The Lost History of Sextus Aurelius Victor - Ebook (PDF)
