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Herodian of Antioch, History of the Roman Empire (1961) pp.1-10. Introduction
Page 1 of 8
Herodian of Antioch, History of the Roman Empire (1961) pp.1-10. Introduction
[Dustjacket]
Price:
$5.00
HERODIAN OF ANTIOCH'S
HISTORY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Translated from the Greek by
Edward C. Echols
Herodian's history is a lively contemporary record of a half century of scandal and intrigue, of
corruption and progressive decay, in the empire. In eight books, it covers the years from 180 to
238, from the death of Marcus Aurelius to the accession of Gordian III.
Although Dio Cassius had already written the definitive history of his age, Herodian, a native of
Syria, and a minor civil servant in Rome, undertook to write, from a somewhat limited personal
experience, supplemented by reference to standard authorities, a moralizing account of the
downward spiral of the empire. He recognizes, acutely for his time, that the death of Marcus
Aurelius was the end of an era in Rome's history and he is chiefly concerned to show his readers the
corruption that followed upon it.
In his literary style Herodian is very much the product of his age: rhetorical, pompous, repetitive,
derivative. Yet, unlike other imperial biographists, he makes no observations on the sexual
experiments of the emperors, but chooses to ignore them. Perhaps, as Mr. Echols suggests in his
introduction, the explanation for this singular omission is that Herodian, himself a Syrian, is
reluctant to reveal the more notorious activities of the Syrian emperors. He is a sincere moralizer
with a thoroughly patriotic Roman outlook.
His account remains the best connected of any contemporary source and is a valuable example of
later classical historiography. This is the first English translation from the Greek text since 1749.
An introduction discusses the few facts about Herodian's life that are known, assesses his place in
Roman historiography, describes his method, philosophy, and style, and comments on Herodian
scholarship to date.
EDWARD ECHOLS is the author of some fifty articles in the classical journals. His special interest is
in translating from late Latin and Greek historical writings. He teaches Latin at The Phillips Exeter
Academy in New Hampshire.
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/herodian_00_intro.htm
5/24/2007
Herodian of Antioch, History of the Roman Empire (1961) pp.1-10. Introduction
Page 2 of 8
HERODIAN OF ANTIOCH'S
HISTORY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
FROM THE DEATH OF MARCUS AURELIUS TO THE ACCESSION OF
GORDIAN III
TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK BY
EDWARD C. ECHOLS
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
BERKELEY & LOS ANGELES
MCMLXI
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
BERKELEY AND LOS ANGELES
© 1961 BY THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
PUBLISHED WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF A GRANT FROM THE FORD FOUNDATION
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NO.: 61-6218
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
DESIGNED BY ADRIAN WILSON
Book vignettes reproduced from wood engravings by F. W. Fairholt, F.S.A., in S. W. Stevenson, F.S.A.,
A Dictionary of Roman Coins
(1889).
TO MY WIFE
MARY VIRGINIA HATHAWAY ECHOLS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I AM grateful to Dr. Linton C. Stevens, Professor of Romance Languages in the University of
Alabama, for helpful criticism in regard to style and clarity. I have also to thank Professor Mason
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/herodian_00_intro.htm
5/24/2007
Herodian of Antioch, History of the Roman Empire (1961) pp.1-10. Introduction
Page 3 of 8
Hammond of Harvard University for his encouragement. And I wish to express my appreciation to
Miss Genevieve Rogers, of the University of California Press, who assisted greatly in bringing the
work to its final form.
The successful completion of this work owes much to the generous and sustained support of the
University Research Committee of the University of Alabama. Grants-in-aid enabled me to give full
time to the work of translation during two summers, and, even more important, made it possible for
me to have access to a library with facilities adequate for the specialized requirements of this
project.
For the shortcomings of the work I assume full responsibility.
E
DWARD
C. E
CHOLS
LIST OF EMPERORS, 180-238
MARCUS AURELIUS
161-180
COMMODUS
180-193
PERTINAX
193
DIDIUS JULIANUS
193
SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS
193-211
CARACALLA
211-217
GETA
211-212
MACRINUS
217-218
ELAGABALUS
218-222
SEVERUS ALEXANDER
222-235
MAXIMINUS
238
GORDIAN I
238
GORDIAN II
238
BALBINUS
238
PUPIENUS MAXIMUS
238
GORDIAN III
238-244
INTRODUCTION
THE Roman historians inherited from the Greeks a long and distinguished historical tradition. It was
Hecataeus of Miletus who, in the fifth century B.C., first turned rational attention to the skeletal
contemporary sources of history—the traditional myths, uncritically accepted, and the local
annalistic records, uncritically evaluated. By the beginning of the Hellenistic period, Greek
historiography included every form of historical writing: the discursive, rambling accounts deriving
from Herodotus; the objective, scientific, and highly literate histories in the manner of Thucydides;
partisan histories designed as propaganda; and historical biographies. Men of action described their
personal exploits, and histories written to entertain or shock foreshadowed historical fiction. By the
end of the fourth century B.C., history was a legitimate and accepted field of literary inquiry.
The Greek writers of the third century B.C., however, failed to find at home a subject worthy of their
talents. The growing importance of Rome tended to counteract the decline of Greek influence, and
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/herodian_00_intro.htm
5/24/2007
Herodian of Antioch, History of the Roman Empire (1961) pp.1-10. Introduction
Page 4 of 8
Timaeus of Sicily, in the third century, wrote at some length of his neighbor in Italy. For the next
several centuries, great events tended to produce great historians, and virtually every phase of
Rome's history was carefully studied and competently published.
The early Roman historians were Greeks. The intent of these writers was to interpret for the Greek-
reading world the phenomenon of Rome's rise to a position of dominance in the Mediterranean
world. Greatest of these pioneer Graeco-Roman historians was the soldier-statesman-author
Polybius (
ca.
203-
ca
. 120 B.C.), who wrote a
Universal History
covering events from 220 to 144
B.C. He describes in admirable detail, and with an equally admirable grasp of the issues involved,
Rome's familiar extern wars during this important formative period. A pragmatic historian,
describing contemporary times, Polybius was a competent analyst and interpreter.
These pragmatic histories, describing in detail short periods of time, were soon replaced at Rome by
the annalistic reconstruction of Rome's early history; the formulation of an annalistic tradition was
necessitated by the growth of nationalism resulting from Rome's increasing importance in the
Mediterranean world. Once the native Roman historiography was firmly established, it soon
embraced all the extant historico-literary forms; by the Augustan Age, Latin historians were writing
antiquarian history, contemporary history, military history, "literary" history, and the historical
biography.
The Graeco-Roman historians continued to write after the field was dominated by the Latin
historians. Before the last century of the Republic, the great Stoic philosopher-historian, Posidonius
of Apamaea, wrote a continuation of Polybius'
Universal History
covering the period from 144 B.C. to
the dictatorship of Sulla. Posidonius, who had visited Rome and had been the teacher of many
distinguished Romans at Rhodes, profoundly affected the literary careers of such Roman historians
as Livy, Sallust, Julius Caesar, Tacitus, and Plutarch. Indeed, Posidonius has been credited with
paving the way for the glory of the Augustan Age by awaking Rome's historians to a realization of
her past and future greatness.
The Greek writers of Roman history were still active in the early empire. Dionysius of Halicarnassus
wrote a rhetorical account of Rome's origins, and Flavius Josephus produced in Greek an all-
inclusive history of the Jews, as well as an eyewitness account of the Flavian conquest of Palestine
in a.d. 68-70.
The growing importance of the individual in the empire raised historical biography to a position of
major importance. In the first century B.C., Cornelius Nepos wrote his
De Viris Illustribus,
a series
of comparative biographies of Greeks and Romans. Plutarch (
ca.
A.D. 46-
post
120) continued this
literary form in a lengthy series of biographies comparing ancient and contemporary figures.
Balancing these "antiquarian" biographies are the imperial biographies of Suetonius (A.D. 69-
ca.
140), in which he described the empire in terms of its chief personalities, beginning with Julius
Caesar.
Paralleling the increasing emphasis upon the place of the individual in history was the trend toward
epitomes, eclectic and excerpted accounts concerned with long periods of time. Among the most
successful of the annalistic epitomizers was the Bithynian, Dio Cassius, who, in the third century of
the Christian era, wrote in Greek his history of Rome from 753 b.c. to a.d. 229. Dio's history is the
major source of information for much of the post-Flavian period, when Rome's historical
felicitas
at
last began to fail. The late historical summarizers, Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, Festus, Zosimus, and
others, treat this period briefly in their epitomes.
The imperial biographers of the
Historia Augusta,
which seems to date from the late fourth century,
provide information about the emperors from Hadrian through Numerianus in 284.
The third original source for the history of this period of the Roman empire is the
Ab Excessu Divi
Marci
by Herodian of Syria, who wrote in Greek an account of the Roman empire from the death of
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/herodian_00_intro.htm
5/24/2007
|2
|3
Herodian of Antioch, History of the Roman Empire (1961) pp.1-10. Introduction
Page 5 of 8
Marcus Aurelius in 180 to the accession of Gordian III in 238. Dio and Herodian provide the only
extant contemporary histories of this important period of the empire.
Iam pridem Syrus in Tiberim defluxit
Orontes.
----
Juvenal
Sat.
III 62
When Juvenal was moved to this peevish observation in the second century of the Christian era, the
influx of Syria and Syrians into Rome was a recognized and often-deplored fact. Not all second-
century Syrians in Rome, however, could be identified with Juvenal's light entertainers. In the field
of history, Posidonius of Apamaea made an important contribution in the first century b.c. In the
field of government, the Syrian phase began about 186, when the commander of a legion in Syria
married the daughter of a priest of Elagabalus in Emesa. When Septimius Severus became emperor
in 193, Rome had a Syrian empress, Julia Domna. When Caracalla became emperor in 211, Rome
had a half-Syrian emperor; when Elagabalus became emperor in 218, Rome had a Syrian emperor.
The key figure in Rome's Syrian dynasty was Julia Domna. A shrewd, highly capable woman, she
had assumed imperial responsibility with her husband. When Caracalla became sole emperor, Julia
was put in charge of imperial correspondence and state records. She soon gathered about her the
most distinguished literary men of the day, many of whom held important political posts: the jurists
Papinian and Ulpian, the biographer Diogenes Laertius, the sophist Philostratus, the historian Dio
Cassius.
After Julia's death, she was replaced at court by her younger sister, Julia Maesa. Rich and wily,
Maesa plotted the overthrow of Macrinus and placed upon the throne her grandson Elagabalus, the
first Syrian emperor of Rome. The Syrian domination was continued by the thirteen-year reign of
Alexander Severus, with whom the dynasty came to an end in 235.
|5
Thus, throughout most of the sixty-year period covered by Herodian's history, Rome was under
some degree of Syrian domination. Herodian states that he had a career in the imperial civil service
(1.2.5) which enabled him to write much of his history from personal experience and observation.
Since his book ends with the year 238, it is hardly likely that he began his career before the
accession of Septimius Severus. Marcus Aurelius had no reason to favor Syria, which had supported
the unsuccessful pretender Avidius Cassius in 175. Commodus also seems to have taken relatively
little interest in the country. But with the accession of Severus and Julia Domna, the time was
favorable for an influx of Syrians into the civil service. Severus did not trust the native Romans,
since he dismissed the Praetorian Guard and replaced it by veterans from his legions. The Syrian (?)
Papinianus served as praetorian prefect under Severus. The imperial bias after 193 was definitely
Eastern, and the literary language of the contemporary literary figures was Greek.
Herodian belonged to the educated class in a country where Aramaic was still the spoken language.
An educated Syrian would obviously be of value in the records division of the imperial civil service.
It may be suggested that Herodian, a trilingual Syrian (Latin sources were employed for the first
four books of his history), joined the civil service after the defeat of Niger by Severus.
Herodian's early association with the Syrian dynasty at Rome would account for the amazing
"Romanness" of his outlook. Herodian is so thoroughly patriotic and so Romanized that he can speak
of his fellow non-Romans as barbarians, and can offer an analysis of his fellow Syrians that is
thoroughly unflattering.
Assuming that he began his imperial service with Septimius Severus and ended it under
Alexander or soon thereafter, Herodian may have been a member of Julia Domna's Eastern-oriented
literary coterie. He read Dio Cassius; he used his sources; it is entirely possible that he knew Dio
Cassius. In view of Dio's advanced age in 229, Herodian probably survived his greater
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/herodian_00_intro.htm
5/24/2007
|6
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl audipoznan.keep.pl
Herodian of Antioch, History of the Roman Empire (1961) pp.1-10. Introduction
Page 1 of 8
Herodian of Antioch, History of the Roman Empire (1961) pp.1-10. Introduction
[Dustjacket]
Price:
$5.00
HERODIAN OF ANTIOCH'S
HISTORY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Translated from the Greek by
Edward C. Echols
Herodian's history is a lively contemporary record of a half century of scandal and intrigue, of
corruption and progressive decay, in the empire. In eight books, it covers the years from 180 to
238, from the death of Marcus Aurelius to the accession of Gordian III.
Although Dio Cassius had already written the definitive history of his age, Herodian, a native of
Syria, and a minor civil servant in Rome, undertook to write, from a somewhat limited personal
experience, supplemented by reference to standard authorities, a moralizing account of the
downward spiral of the empire. He recognizes, acutely for his time, that the death of Marcus
Aurelius was the end of an era in Rome's history and he is chiefly concerned to show his readers the
corruption that followed upon it.
In his literary style Herodian is very much the product of his age: rhetorical, pompous, repetitive,
derivative. Yet, unlike other imperial biographists, he makes no observations on the sexual
experiments of the emperors, but chooses to ignore them. Perhaps, as Mr. Echols suggests in his
introduction, the explanation for this singular omission is that Herodian, himself a Syrian, is
reluctant to reveal the more notorious activities of the Syrian emperors. He is a sincere moralizer
with a thoroughly patriotic Roman outlook.
His account remains the best connected of any contemporary source and is a valuable example of
later classical historiography. This is the first English translation from the Greek text since 1749.
An introduction discusses the few facts about Herodian's life that are known, assesses his place in
Roman historiography, describes his method, philosophy, and style, and comments on Herodian
scholarship to date.
EDWARD ECHOLS is the author of some fifty articles in the classical journals. His special interest is
in translating from late Latin and Greek historical writings. He teaches Latin at The Phillips Exeter
Academy in New Hampshire.
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/herodian_00_intro.htm
5/24/2007
Herodian of Antioch, History of the Roman Empire (1961) pp.1-10. Introduction
Page 2 of 8
HERODIAN OF ANTIOCH'S
HISTORY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
FROM THE DEATH OF MARCUS AURELIUS TO THE ACCESSION OF
GORDIAN III
TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK BY
EDWARD C. ECHOLS
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
BERKELEY & LOS ANGELES
MCMLXI
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
BERKELEY AND LOS ANGELES
© 1961 BY THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
PUBLISHED WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF A GRANT FROM THE FORD FOUNDATION
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NO.: 61-6218
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
DESIGNED BY ADRIAN WILSON
Book vignettes reproduced from wood engravings by F. W. Fairholt, F.S.A., in S. W. Stevenson, F.S.A.,
A Dictionary of Roman Coins
(1889).
TO MY WIFE
MARY VIRGINIA HATHAWAY ECHOLS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I AM grateful to Dr. Linton C. Stevens, Professor of Romance Languages in the University of
Alabama, for helpful criticism in regard to style and clarity. I have also to thank Professor Mason
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/herodian_00_intro.htm
5/24/2007
Herodian of Antioch, History of the Roman Empire (1961) pp.1-10. Introduction
Page 3 of 8
Hammond of Harvard University for his encouragement. And I wish to express my appreciation to
Miss Genevieve Rogers, of the University of California Press, who assisted greatly in bringing the
work to its final form.
The successful completion of this work owes much to the generous and sustained support of the
University Research Committee of the University of Alabama. Grants-in-aid enabled me to give full
time to the work of translation during two summers, and, even more important, made it possible for
me to have access to a library with facilities adequate for the specialized requirements of this
project.
For the shortcomings of the work I assume full responsibility.
E
DWARD
C. E
CHOLS
LIST OF EMPERORS, 180-238
MARCUS AURELIUS
161-180
COMMODUS
180-193
PERTINAX
193
DIDIUS JULIANUS
193
SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS
193-211
CARACALLA
211-217
GETA
211-212
MACRINUS
217-218
ELAGABALUS
218-222
SEVERUS ALEXANDER
222-235
MAXIMINUS
238
GORDIAN I
238
GORDIAN II
238
BALBINUS
238
PUPIENUS MAXIMUS
238
GORDIAN III
238-244
INTRODUCTION
THE Roman historians inherited from the Greeks a long and distinguished historical tradition. It was
Hecataeus of Miletus who, in the fifth century B.C., first turned rational attention to the skeletal
contemporary sources of history—the traditional myths, uncritically accepted, and the local
annalistic records, uncritically evaluated. By the beginning of the Hellenistic period, Greek
historiography included every form of historical writing: the discursive, rambling accounts deriving
from Herodotus; the objective, scientific, and highly literate histories in the manner of Thucydides;
partisan histories designed as propaganda; and historical biographies. Men of action described their
personal exploits, and histories written to entertain or shock foreshadowed historical fiction. By the
end of the fourth century B.C., history was a legitimate and accepted field of literary inquiry.
The Greek writers of the third century B.C., however, failed to find at home a subject worthy of their
talents. The growing importance of Rome tended to counteract the decline of Greek influence, and
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/herodian_00_intro.htm
5/24/2007
Herodian of Antioch, History of the Roman Empire (1961) pp.1-10. Introduction
Page 4 of 8
Timaeus of Sicily, in the third century, wrote at some length of his neighbor in Italy. For the next
several centuries, great events tended to produce great historians, and virtually every phase of
Rome's history was carefully studied and competently published.
The early Roman historians were Greeks. The intent of these writers was to interpret for the Greek-
reading world the phenomenon of Rome's rise to a position of dominance in the Mediterranean
world. Greatest of these pioneer Graeco-Roman historians was the soldier-statesman-author
Polybius (
ca.
203-
ca
. 120 B.C.), who wrote a
Universal History
covering events from 220 to 144
B.C. He describes in admirable detail, and with an equally admirable grasp of the issues involved,
Rome's familiar extern wars during this important formative period. A pragmatic historian,
describing contemporary times, Polybius was a competent analyst and interpreter.
These pragmatic histories, describing in detail short periods of time, were soon replaced at Rome by
the annalistic reconstruction of Rome's early history; the formulation of an annalistic tradition was
necessitated by the growth of nationalism resulting from Rome's increasing importance in the
Mediterranean world. Once the native Roman historiography was firmly established, it soon
embraced all the extant historico-literary forms; by the Augustan Age, Latin historians were writing
antiquarian history, contemporary history, military history, "literary" history, and the historical
biography.
The Graeco-Roman historians continued to write after the field was dominated by the Latin
historians. Before the last century of the Republic, the great Stoic philosopher-historian, Posidonius
of Apamaea, wrote a continuation of Polybius'
Universal History
covering the period from 144 B.C. to
the dictatorship of Sulla. Posidonius, who had visited Rome and had been the teacher of many
distinguished Romans at Rhodes, profoundly affected the literary careers of such Roman historians
as Livy, Sallust, Julius Caesar, Tacitus, and Plutarch. Indeed, Posidonius has been credited with
paving the way for the glory of the Augustan Age by awaking Rome's historians to a realization of
her past and future greatness.
The Greek writers of Roman history were still active in the early empire. Dionysius of Halicarnassus
wrote a rhetorical account of Rome's origins, and Flavius Josephus produced in Greek an all-
inclusive history of the Jews, as well as an eyewitness account of the Flavian conquest of Palestine
in a.d. 68-70.
The growing importance of the individual in the empire raised historical biography to a position of
major importance. In the first century B.C., Cornelius Nepos wrote his
De Viris Illustribus,
a series
of comparative biographies of Greeks and Romans. Plutarch (
ca.
A.D. 46-
post
120) continued this
literary form in a lengthy series of biographies comparing ancient and contemporary figures.
Balancing these "antiquarian" biographies are the imperial biographies of Suetonius (A.D. 69-
ca.
140), in which he described the empire in terms of its chief personalities, beginning with Julius
Caesar.
Paralleling the increasing emphasis upon the place of the individual in history was the trend toward
epitomes, eclectic and excerpted accounts concerned with long periods of time. Among the most
successful of the annalistic epitomizers was the Bithynian, Dio Cassius, who, in the third century of
the Christian era, wrote in Greek his history of Rome from 753 b.c. to a.d. 229. Dio's history is the
major source of information for much of the post-Flavian period, when Rome's historical
felicitas
at
last began to fail. The late historical summarizers, Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, Festus, Zosimus, and
others, treat this period briefly in their epitomes.
The imperial biographers of the
Historia Augusta,
which seems to date from the late fourth century,
provide information about the emperors from Hadrian through Numerianus in 284.
The third original source for the history of this period of the Roman empire is the
Ab Excessu Divi
Marci
by Herodian of Syria, who wrote in Greek an account of the Roman empire from the death of
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/herodian_00_intro.htm
5/24/2007
|2
|3
Herodian of Antioch, History of the Roman Empire (1961) pp.1-10. Introduction
Page 5 of 8
Marcus Aurelius in 180 to the accession of Gordian III in 238. Dio and Herodian provide the only
extant contemporary histories of this important period of the empire.
Iam pridem Syrus in Tiberim defluxit
Orontes.
----
Juvenal
Sat.
III 62
When Juvenal was moved to this peevish observation in the second century of the Christian era, the
influx of Syria and Syrians into Rome was a recognized and often-deplored fact. Not all second-
century Syrians in Rome, however, could be identified with Juvenal's light entertainers. In the field
of history, Posidonius of Apamaea made an important contribution in the first century b.c. In the
field of government, the Syrian phase began about 186, when the commander of a legion in Syria
married the daughter of a priest of Elagabalus in Emesa. When Septimius Severus became emperor
in 193, Rome had a Syrian empress, Julia Domna. When Caracalla became emperor in 211, Rome
had a half-Syrian emperor; when Elagabalus became emperor in 218, Rome had a Syrian emperor.
The key figure in Rome's Syrian dynasty was Julia Domna. A shrewd, highly capable woman, she
had assumed imperial responsibility with her husband. When Caracalla became sole emperor, Julia
was put in charge of imperial correspondence and state records. She soon gathered about her the
most distinguished literary men of the day, many of whom held important political posts: the jurists
Papinian and Ulpian, the biographer Diogenes Laertius, the sophist Philostratus, the historian Dio
Cassius.
After Julia's death, she was replaced at court by her younger sister, Julia Maesa. Rich and wily,
Maesa plotted the overthrow of Macrinus and placed upon the throne her grandson Elagabalus, the
first Syrian emperor of Rome. The Syrian domination was continued by the thirteen-year reign of
Alexander Severus, with whom the dynasty came to an end in 235.
|5
Thus, throughout most of the sixty-year period covered by Herodian's history, Rome was under
some degree of Syrian domination. Herodian states that he had a career in the imperial civil service
(1.2.5) which enabled him to write much of his history from personal experience and observation.
Since his book ends with the year 238, it is hardly likely that he began his career before the
accession of Septimius Severus. Marcus Aurelius had no reason to favor Syria, which had supported
the unsuccessful pretender Avidius Cassius in 175. Commodus also seems to have taken relatively
little interest in the country. But with the accession of Severus and Julia Domna, the time was
favorable for an influx of Syrians into the civil service. Severus did not trust the native Romans,
since he dismissed the Praetorian Guard and replaced it by veterans from his legions. The Syrian (?)
Papinianus served as praetorian prefect under Severus. The imperial bias after 193 was definitely
Eastern, and the literary language of the contemporary literary figures was Greek.
Herodian belonged to the educated class in a country where Aramaic was still the spoken language.
An educated Syrian would obviously be of value in the records division of the imperial civil service.
It may be suggested that Herodian, a trilingual Syrian (Latin sources were employed for the first
four books of his history), joined the civil service after the defeat of Niger by Severus.
Herodian's early association with the Syrian dynasty at Rome would account for the amazing
"Romanness" of his outlook. Herodian is so thoroughly patriotic and so Romanized that he can speak
of his fellow non-Romans as barbarians, and can offer an analysis of his fellow Syrians that is
thoroughly unflattering.
Assuming that he began his imperial service with Septimius Severus and ended it under
Alexander or soon thereafter, Herodian may have been a member of Julia Domna's Eastern-oriented
literary coterie. He read Dio Cassius; he used his sources; it is entirely possible that he knew Dio
Cassius. In view of Dio's advanced age in 229, Herodian probably survived his greater
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/herodian_00_intro.htm
5/24/2007
|6
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]