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HISTORY
mentators. But it also contains many references to authorities of the Republican
period and to others of whom nothing whatever is known. Its author has often
been accused of falsification, but the charge must remain not proven. It cannot
be excluded that this fourth-century scholar had access to a handbook of the
Augustan age also used by Dionysius of Halicarnassus. The general tone of his
exposition is rationalizing and euhemeristic, treating mythology as misunderstood
history. The language and style are those of the fourth century,
without the usually declamatory tone of voice, a language and style which
suggest the grammarian rather than the rhetorician. The Origo is still something
of an enigma, in spite of the vindication of its authenticity.
The De viris illustribus is a series of eighty-six biographies of leading men,
beginning with Proca, king of Alba Longa, and Romulus, going on through
the kings of Rome and the founding fathers of the Republic to the heroes of
the early Republic like Camillus, P. Decius Mus and T. Manlius Torquatus,
historical figures like Appius Claudius Caecus, Quintus Fabius Maximus
Cunctator, Cato the Censor and Scipio Africanus, and concluding with the
men of the last century of the Republic, the Gracchi, Marius, Saturninus,
Sulla, Caesar, Cicero, Antony and Octavian. It includes biographies of a few
enemies of Rome, such as King Pyrrhus of Epirus, King Antiochus of Syria,
Mithridates, and Cleopatra, whose brief biography concludes the series. In
its present form the work contains no preface and no narrative links between
the biographies. The style at its best is crisp and epigrammatic, with a tendency
to forced antitheses - Cleopatra tantae libidinis fuit, ut saepe prostiterit, tantae
pulchritudinis, ut multi noctem illius morte emerint ' So great was her lust that she
often prostituted herself, so great her beauty that many gave their lives for a
night with her'. At its worst it is awkward and pretentious. The language
is post-classical. The editor who compiled the corpus of Roman history believed
that the De viris illustribus was an epitome of Livy. In fact the sources are,
as might be expected in the case of a compendium of generally accessible
information, not easy to identify. They may include Hyginus and Florus as
well as some kind of Livian epitome. The De viris illustribus is useful in that it
covers two gaps in the surviving epitome of Livy. None of the three works
included in the corpus has any systematic chronological framework.
Of Eutropius all that is known with certainty is that he accompanied the
emperor Julian on his Persian campaign and that he was private secretary
(magister memoriae) to Valens, at whose behest he wrote his historical compendium
in 369 or 370. He may well have been private secretary to all emperors
from Constantius II to Valens. He is very probably to be identified "with
the Eutropius who was proconsul of Asia in 371—2, was accused of treason by
his successor in office but acquitted, was Praetorian Prefect of Illyricum in
380-1, and consul along with Valentinian in 387. Thus he would be a senator
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