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The historian Eusebius (of Nantes)*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Hagith Sivan
Hagith Sivan
Affiliation:
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
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Extract

Over a century ago C. Müller published two fragments from a manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale (Codex Parisinus inter supplementa Graeca 607). One fragment (fol. 103v) is entitled ‘From the ninth book of the histories by Eusebius: the siege of Thessalonike by the Scythians’. Another folio of the same manuscript (17r) contains an untitled and longer excerpt which describes counter-siege tactics invented or implemented in a city in Macedonia, followed by an unfinished description of the siege of a Gallic city (Tours).

Type
Notes
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 112 , November 1992 , pp. 158 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1992

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References

1 FHG v 21–3 (Jacoby FGrHist 101). The fragment on the siege of Thessalonike was also published by Müller in an earlier volume (FHG iii 728), where the material was taken from the Excerpt. Constantin. and was appended to the work of Josephus.

2 FHG v 21 (third century for the siege of Thessalonike), 23 (first century for the siege of Tours), corrected by Reinach, Th., ‘Le premier siege entrepris par les Francs’, Rev. hist, xliii (1890) 34–36Google Scholar to the third century. See below for a detailed discussion of chronology.

4 For full descriptions, Omont, H., Inventaire sommaire des manuscripts grecs de la Bibliothèque nationale. Ancien fonds grec (Paris 1888) iii 282.Google ScholarMü, , FHG v, vii–xivGoogle Scholar; Wescher, C., La poliorcétique des Grecs (Paris 1967) xv f.Google Scholar; Schöne, H., Heronis Alexandrini opera quae supersunt omnia iii (Leipzig 1903), xii f.Google Scholar; idem, ‘Ueber des Mynascodex der griechischen Kriegsschriftsteller in der Pariser Nationalbibliothek’, MH liii (1898) 432–47.

5 The works on war machines and artillery by Biton and Hero are all mercifully accessible in Marsden, E. W., Greek and Roman artillery: technical treatises (Oxford 1971) 17–43Google Scholar; 65–77; 211–217.

6 Many of these authors feature in the list of Evagrius' (HE v 24) ‘secular’ historians: Josephus, Dionysius, Polybius, Dexippus, Arrian and Eusebius. This, in fact, may be some indication of the age of this anthology.

7 Although the fragment dealing with the siege of Thessalonike appears many folios after the one describing the siege of Tours, I follow here Müller's order and divisions of the text into fr. 1.1 (Thessalonike) and fr. 2.2–8 (Macedonia and Tours).

8 FHG v 21; Paschoud, , Zosime. Histoire nouvelle, i 151Google Scholar, n. 56.

9 See Paschoud, , Zosime, i, xxxvii f.Google Scholar for an array of modern opinions supporting this theory. He himself reserves judgement.

10 Millar, F., ‘D. Herennius Dexippus: The Greek world and the third century invasions’, JRS lix (1969) 25Google Scholar; Armstrong, D., ‘Gallienus in Athens 264’, ZPE lxxx (1987) 253.Google Scholar

11 Millar, ZPE, 25.

12 For one modern attempt, with illustrations, Brok, M. F. A., ‘Ein spätrönischer Brandpfeil nach Ammianus’, Saalburg Jahrbuch xxxv (1978) 57–60.Google Scholar

13 Thucydides iv 100, 115.2–3 with Marsden, E. W., Greek and Roman artillery: historical development (Oxford 1969) 51.Google Scholar

14 Arr. Anab. ii 21.2 with Marsden (n. 13) 103 (using the word purphoroi).

15 Diod. Sic. xx 48.6.

16 Diod. Sic. xx,96.6.

17 Marsden (n. 13) 172.

18 xxiii 4.14–15: malleoli autem, teli genus, figurantur hac specie: sagitta est cannea, inter spiculum et harundinem multifido ferro coagmentata, quae in muliebris coli formam (quo nentur lintea stamina), concavatur ventre subtiliter, et plurifariam patens, atque in alveo ipso ignem cum aliquo suspicit alimento Cf. Eusebius 2.5–6.

19 Amm. xxiii 4.1: re ipsa admoneor, breviter quantum mediocre potest ingenium, haec instrumentorum genera ignorantibus circumscripte monstrare.

20 Eusebius merely uses the word πολέμιος to describe the other side.

21 48–51, with Marsden (n. 5) 69.

22 2.8: τάδε παρά γε Μακεδόνων αὺτῶν οὺκ ἤκουσα. I do not think that the use of the verb ‘to hear’ is an objection.

23 Reinach, op. cit., and Demougeot, E., La formation de l'Europe et les invasions barbares i (Paris 1969) 500–503Google Scholar for 258 AD; Jullian, C., Histoire de la Gaule iv (Paris 1926) 595 n. 3Google Scholar; 601 n. 2; vii, 44 n. 7, for the Frankish raids of 275/6 and a power struggle between Florian and Probus. He is supported by Pietri, L., La ville de Tours du IV au VI siècle: naissance d'une cité chrétienne (Rome 1983) 10 n. 9Google Scholar, adducing archaeological finds such as the sudden cessation of local pottery production and a layer of ashes. König, I., Die gallischen Usurpatoren von Postumus bis Tetricus (München 1981), 81 n. 26Google Scholar, also for a date during the reign of Probus, on the basis of Eusebius' reference to walls. Drinkwater, J. F., The Gallic empire (Stuttgart 1987) 84–5Google Scholar connects Eusebius' siege with a reference in Gregory of Tours, HF i 32, 34Google Scholar, to a Frankish raid during the reign of Valerian and Gallienus (253–8).

24 Année Epigr. 1928, 38 (Saldae) with Millar, op. cit., 29.

25 Amm. xxxi 6.3–4; 15.15 ; any display to the contrary has always been connected with the presence of Roman defectors in the barbarian camps. When helped by these renegades, the capacity of the third-century German invaders to pick up imperial military and naval technology was not unimpressive, as Dexippus shows.

26 Schöne, MH (see n. 4) calculated that fol. 16–17 was followed by fols. 96–103.

27 Jullian, Histoire, vii 44Google Scholar, n. 7.

28 HA Tyr. Trig. 3.4, if indeed the author is trustworthy on this point. Lander, J., Roman stone fortifications (BAR IS ccvi, [1984]) 151 f.Google Scholar, on the lack of real evidence even for the presumed fortifications of Probus.

29 Drinkwater, Gallic empire 85.

30 Rouche, M., ‘Le changement de nom de chefs-lieux de cité en Gaule au Bas-Empire’, Mém. de la soc. des antiquaires de France iv (1968) 47–64.Google ScholarCf. Ptolemy ii.8.11 (the Turonii and their polis, Caesarodunum). LSJ s.v. ‘ἔθνος’ 1.2.c.

31 Weiss, R., ‘Ausonius in the fourteenth century’, in Classical influences on European culture AD 500–1500, ed. Bolgar, R. R. (Cambridge 1971) 67–72.Google Scholar The list appears also in Prete's edition of Ausonius' works (Leipzig 1978) xxvi.

32 Reeve, M. D., ‘Some manuscripts of Ausonius’, Prometheus iii (1977) 112–120Google Scholar, esp. 119: ‘a genuine work of Ausonius’.

33 Ibid. 120.

34 As the title indicates: de XII caesaribus per Suetonium Tranquillum scriptis.

35 Green, R. P. H., ‘Marius Maximus and Ausonius' Caesares’, CQ xxxi (1981) 226–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for summary of this opinion which he justly opposes.

36 There is a slight and insignificant discrepancy between the end of Eusebius' history according to Evagrius (death of Carus in July 283) and its terminus in the Ausonian version (accession of Diocletian in November 284). The dynasty of Carus came to an end only in July 285, with the death of Carinus, Carus' son and successor.

37 Millar, op. cit., 23.

38 Gellius, Aulus, NA xx 1.20Google Scholar; PW vi.2 (1909), 2078f.

39 Pan. Lat. v 17 3–4.

40 Leclercq in DACL iii 2.2273 f. for Gaul (colonies d'orientaux en occident).

41 Epicedion in patrem 9–10: ‘sermone impromptus Latio, verum Attica lingua/ suffecit culti vocibus eloquii’.

42 Par. 16. 5ff.: ‘nunc laudanda forent (Liceria's virtues) procul et de manibus imis/ arcessenda esset vox proavi Eusebii./ qui quoniam functo iam pridem conditus aevo/ transcripsit panes in mea verba suas…’ Green, , CQ xxxi (1981) 230Google Scholar, has the Eusebius of Ausonius, but not between these testimonies and the fragments here discussed.