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The fate of the Magister Equitum Marcellus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

David Woods
David Woods
Affiliation:
Mullingar
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Extract

In A.D. 357 while at Antioch the sophist Libanius wrote a letter to his friend Anatolius in which he congratulated him on his appointment as praefectus praetorio Illyrid. He expressed his pleasure at the conduct of Anatolius in his new appointment, and related a story which he had heard at Antioch from Musonianus, the praefectus praetorio Orientis. On his appointment, Anatolius had promised Constantius II that he would not ignore the misconduct of any official, whether civilian or military, whatever his rank. This promise had been put into effect almost immediately when one of the military commanders who showed cowardice against the barbarians was arrested.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , May 1995 , pp. 266 - 268
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1995

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References

1 Ep. 22 in the Loeb edition of Norman, A. F., Libanius: Autobiography and Selected Letters, vol.i (Harvard, 1992)Google Scholar; Ep. 552 in the Teubner edition of Foerster, R., Libani Opera, vol. x (Leipzig, 1921)Google Scholar. On the career of Anatolius see Norman, A. F., ‘The Illyrian Prefecture of Anatolius’, Rheinisches Museum fur Philologie 100 (1957), 253–9Google Scholar. The entry in PLRE I, 59–60, Anatolius 3, confuses different Anatolii.

2 The sequence and significance of the various military actions which Ammianus records have been disputed by, for example, Crump, G. A., Ammianus Marcellinus as a Military Historian (Wiesbaden, 1975), pp. 18–20Google Scholar.

3 Amm. 16.11.7, ‘magister peditum ignavus et gloriarum luliani pervicax obtrectator,’ also 17.6.2, ‘ignavus sed verbis effusior.’

4 On this embassy see Liebeschuetz, J. H. W. G., Antioch: City and Imperial Administration in the Later Roman Empire (Oxford, 1972), p. 266Google Scholar.

5 For the imperial journeys and residences of Constantius II see Barnes, T. D., Athanasius and Constantius: Theology and Politics in the Constantinian Empire (Harvard, 1993), pp. 218–24Google Scholar.

6 A fragment from Eunapius seems to attest to Marcellus' survival at this time, Blockley, R. C., The Fragmentary Classicising Historians of the Later Roman Empire (Liverpool, 1983), vol. ii, p. 37Google Scholar.