Aurelius Victor

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Sextus Aurelius Victor ({{circa}} 320 – {{circa}} 390) was a historian and politician of the Roman Empire. Victor was the author of a now-lost monumental history of imperial Rome covering the period from Augustus to Constantius II.{{cite journal |last1=Stover |first1=Justin |last2=Woudhuysen |first2=George |title=The Lost History of Sextus Aurelius Victor |journal=Antigone |url=https://antigonejournal.com/2023/09/lost-history-aurelius-victor/ |access-date=April 19, 2025}} Under the emperor Julian (361-363), Victor served as governor of Pannonia Secunda in 361;{{cite journal |last1=Bird |first1=H.W. |title=A Reconstruction of the Life and Career of S. Aurelius Victor |journal=The Classical Journal |date=April–May 1975 |volume=70 |issue=4 |pages=49–54 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3295765 |access-date=April 20, 2025}} in 389 he became praefectus urbi (urban prefect), senior imperial official in Rome.Ammianus Marcellinus, xxi.10.

His surviving work, entitled De Caesaribus is a brief epitome of his history, and was originally titled in the two surviving manuscripts {{lang|lac|Aurelii Victoris Historiae Abbreviatae}}. The work was published in 361.

Aurelius was born to a poor family in North Africa to an uneducated father. He was educated, first at Carthage and then at Rome. He apparently composed his history getween 358 and 360. Following the publication his reputation grew enough that Julian erected a bronze status of him in Naissus.

Aurelius survived the death of the pagan Julian into the reign of the fiercely anti-pagan Theodosius I (347–395). It appears he became consul in 369, and suffect consul between 370 and 378. In 388 or 389, Theodosius appointed Aurelius urban prefect.

Enmannsche Kaisergeschichte

In 1884, German scholar Alexander Enmann posited a hypothetical, lost manuscript to explain the similarities among Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, the author of the Historia Augusta, and others.{{cite journal|first=R. W. |last=Burgess |title=On the Date of the Kaisergeschichte |journal= Classical Philology |volume=90 |number=2 |date=1995 |pages=111–128 |doi=10.1086/367453 |jstor=270485 |s2cid=162872345}}{{rp|pp.111-114}} Recently, however, this source has been suggested to be in fact the lost history of Aurelius Victor, of which his surviving works are only epitomes.

Surviving works

Four small historical works have been ascribed to him, although only his authorship of De Caesaribus is securely established:

Origo Gentis Romanae
De Viris Illustribus Romae
De Caesaribus {{lang|lac|Aurelii Victoris Historiae Abbreviatae}}
Epitome de Caesaribus {{lang|lac|Libellus breviatus de vita et moribus imperatorum breviatus ex libris Sexti Aurelius Victoris}} (attributed)

The four have generally been published together under the name Historia Romana. The second was first printed at Naples about 1472, in 4to, under the name of Pliny the Younger, and the fourth in Strasbourg in 1505.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

The first edition of all four books was that of Andreas Schott (8 volumes, Antwerp, 1579). A recent edition of the De Caesaribus is by Pierre Dufraigne (Collection Budé, 1975).

Notes

References

{{EB1911|wstitle=Victor, Sextus Aurelius|volume=28 }}
H.W. Bird (1994) Aurelius Victor: De Caesaribus. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
{{cite book |last=Bird |year=1984 |first=H. W. |title=Sextus Aurelius Victor: A Historiographical Study |publisher=Francis Cairns |place=Liverpool |isbn=978-0-9052-0521-2|url= https://archive.org/details/sextusaureliusvi0000bird }}
W. den Boer (1972) Some Minor Roman Historians. Leiden: Brill.
P. Dufraigne (1975) Aurelius Victor: Livre de Cesars. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.
{{cite book|last1=Nickbakht|first1=Mehran A.|last2=Scardino|first2=Carlo|title=Aurelius Victor, Historiae Abbreviatae|series=Kleine und fragmentarische Historiker der Spätantike|volume=B2|publisher=Brill Schöningh|location=Paderborn|year=2021|ISBN=978-3-506-70275-3}}
D. Rohrbacher (2002) The Historians of Late Antiquity. London: Routledge.
{{cite book |last1=Stover |first1=Justin |last2=Woudhuysen |first2=George |title=The lost history of Sextus Aurelius Victor |date=2023 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |location=Edinburgh |isbn=9781474492874}} ([https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-lost-history-of-sextus-aurelius-victor.html Open Access]).

External links

{{cite encyclopedia | article = AURELIUS VICTOR | last = Chaumont | first = M.L. | url = http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/aurelius-victor-sextus-born-in-africa-ca | encyclopedia = Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. III, Fasc. 1 | pages = 28–29 | year = 1987 }}
[http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/victor.html Works by Aurelius Victor in thelatinlibrary.com] (Latin text)
{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20220108183524/http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/aurelius_victorx.html Works by Aurelius Victor in forumromanum.org]}} (Latin, English and French texts)
[https://books.google.com/books?id=7rtGAAAAIAAJ Sexti Aurelii Victoris quae vulgo habentur scripta historica], Friedrich Schroeter (ed.), 2 voll., Lipsiae, sumptibus Augusti Lehnholdi, 1829-31 (contains Origo and De viris illustribus).
[https://archive.org/details/decaesaribuslib00pichgoog Sexti Aurelii Victoris de caesaribus liber], Franciscus Pichlmayr (ed.), Monachii, typos curavit F. Straub, 1892.
[https://archive.org/details/sextiaureliivic00victgoog Sexti Aurelii Victoris historia romana], Lipsiae, sumptibus succ. Ottonis Holtze, 1892 (contains the opera omnia).
Sexti Aurelii Victoris historia romana, Th. Chr. Harlesii (ed.), 2 voll., Londini, curante et imprimente A. J. Valpy, 1829: [https://archive.org/details/sextiaureliivic00victgoog vol. 1], [https://archive.org/details/sextiaureliivic03victgoog vol. 2] (contains the opera omnia).
[https://www.gottwein.de/Lat/AurVict/victCaes01.php Liber de Caesaribus] (Latin text and German translation)