Rome's Gothic Wars_ From the Third Century to Alaric - Michael Kulikowski [97]
Aurelius Victor
governor of Pannonia Ⅱ (361) and prefect of Rome (389), author of a short epitome of Roman imperial history, the Caesars, running from Augustus to Constantius Ⅱ and completed in about 360, which is particularly important for the history of the later third and parts of the fourth century.
Basil of Caesarea
c. 330–379, bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia and the most important Greek theologian of the later fourth century. His letters provide important information about the Gothic martyr Saba, as well as general statements about the conditions in Thrace in the chaotic years that preceded Adrianople.
Cassiodorus
c. 490–c. 585, official at the court of several Ostrogothic kings of Italy, most importantly Theodoric, before abandoning the Gothic cause around 537 and retiring to Constantinople. Author of many surviving works, but also of a now lost Gothic history in twelve books which Jordanes used, though to what extent is controversial.
Claudian
born Claudius Claudianus in Alexandria in Egypt, Claudian made his career as a poet in the Latin West; his earliest poems date from the early 390s and after mid-395 he was the chief spokesman for Stilicho. His poems provide much of our information on Alaric and court politics from 395 to 404.
Dexippus
third-century Athenian historian who wrote a universal history in twelve books and an account of the third-century Gothic invasions from 238 to c. 275 called the Scythica. Though both survive only in fragments, they were used by Zosimus in his New History.
Epitome de Caesaribus
a later fourth-century account of Roman history which preserves some fragments of information not in Aurelius Victor or Eutropius.
Eunapius of Sardis
author of a classicizing history of his own times written in the aftermath of Adrianople which survives only in fragments but which formed a major source for Zosimus’ New History. Eunapius also wrote a volume of Lives of the Sophists, some of which sheds light on Alaric’s invasion of Greece.
Eutropius
imperial administrator and author of a Breviary or abridgement of Roman history from its beginnings until the death of Jovian, which he dedicated to Valens and which preserves some otherwise unknown information on the third and fourth centuries.
Gregory Thaumaturgus
c. 213–c. 270, bishop of Neocaesarea in Pontus, his canonical letter is the most vivid and important testimony to the effects of Gothic raids in Asia Minor during the 250s.
Gregory of Nyssa
c. 330–395, bishop of Nyssa, younger brother of Basil of Caesarea, and like him an important theologian. Two of his sermons record the depredations of Goths in Asia Minor in the aftermath of the battle of Adrianople.
Herodotus
fifth century B.C., author of a large history, completed before 425 B.C., and centred on the wars between Greece and Persia. This work provided a model for much later Greek history and invented the stereotype of the Scythian that was so prevalent in third- and fourth-century accounts of the Goths.
Historia Augusta
late fourth-century collection of imperial biographies from Hadrian to Carus and Carinus, based on generally good sources for the second century, but descending into almost total fiction by the end of the third. Nonetheless, the Historia Augusta preserves a few details of Gothic history derived from better sources like Dexippus and otherwise lost.
Jerome
Christian priest and polemicist, c. 345–420, author of many works, including a Chronicle that translated into Latin and continued the chronicle of Eusebius of Caesarea; Jerome’s Chronicle provides some information about Gothic history not known – or at least not dated – in other sources.
Jordanes
sixth-century historian from Constantinople who wrote both a Roman and a Gothic history (the Romana and the Getica), the latter at some point after 550. Jordanes made some use of Cassiodorus’ Gothic history – how much is controversial – but he added a great deal