Eutropius

Life

Eutropius is said to have come from Burdigala (Bordeaux), the capital of Roman Aquitaine in what is now southwestern France. He was almost certainly a pagan and remained one under the emperor Julian's Christian successors.

He served as the imperial secretary (Latin: magister memoriae) in Constantinople. He accompanied Julian the Apostate (r 361–363) on his expedition against the Parthians in 363. He survived at least as long as the reign of the emperor Valens (364–378), to whom he dedicated his Summary of Roman History.

His history ends during Valens's reign but he possibly survived and held high office in later years as well: a "Eutropius" is known to have served as praetorian prefect for Illyria in 380 and imperial consul—with the emperor Valentinian II—in 387.

Work

His Summary of Roman History (Latin: Breviarium Historiae Romanae) is a ten-chapter compendium of Roman history from its foundation to the accession of Valens. It was compiled with considerable care from the best accessible authorities; it was written in a clear and simple style; and it treats its subjects with general impartiality. For the Republican period, Eutropius depended upon an epitome of Livy. For the Empire, he appears to have used Suetonius and the now lost Enmannsche Kaisergeschichte. At the end, he probably made use of his own personal experiences.

Legacy

The independent value of his Summary is small, but it sometimes fills a gap left by the more authoritative records. It is particularly useful to historians for its account of the First Punic War, as no copy of Livy's original books for that period have survived.

Its stylistic and methodological virtues caused it to be much used by later Roman chroniclers. In particular, it received expanded editions by Paul the Deacon and Landolf Sagax that repeated the original text and then continued it into the reigns of Justinian the Great and Leo the Armenian respectively. It was translated into Greek by Paeanius around 380 and by Capito Lycius in the 6th century. The later has survived almost in its entirety.

Although Eutropius's style constains some idiosyncrasies, the work's plain style made it long a favorite elementary Latin schoolbook. A scholarly edition was compiled by H. Droysen in 1879, containing Capito Lycius's Greek edition and the expanded Latin editions of Paul and Landolf. There have been numerous English editions and translations, including Bird's.