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On Goulet's chronology of Eunapius' life and works

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Thomas M. Banchich
Thomas M. Banchich
Affiliation:
Canisius College, Buffalo, New York
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Extract

In the centennial JHS, R. Goulet proposed a radical revision of the chronology of the life and literary productions of Eunapius of Sardis. Briefly stated, Goulet argued that Eunapius had arrived as a student in Athens in 364, rather than 362, and identified the later date with the terminus of the first ἔκδοσις of Eunapius' History, the publication of which he placed not before 395. This date, in turn, forced him to explain references in Eunapius' other known work, the Vitae Sophistarum, to post-364 events that had already been treated in the History, as anticipatory allusions integrated into accounts of earlier affairs. Though Goulet's reconstruction has as yet gone unchallenged, its infirm foundation of hypothesis supported by special pleading collapses beneath the weight of the evidence at hand.

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Notes
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 107 , November 1987 , pp. 164 - 167
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1987

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References

1 ‘Sur la chronologie de la vie et des ocuvres d'Eunape de Sardes’, JHS c (1980) 60–72Google Scholar, hereafter Goulet.

2 The Vitae Sophistarum (= VS) is cited according to the page and line numbers of the edition of G. Giangrande (Rome 1956), followed by the pagination of J. Boissonade's Didot text (Paris 1850); the historical fragments according to the numeration of Blockley, R. C., The fragmentary classicising historians of the later Roman Empire ii (Liverpool 1983) 2–127Google Scholar, followed by their provenance in the Excerpta de Sententiis ( = ES), ed. Boissevain, U. (Berlin 1906)Google Scholar, or Suda, ed. Adler, A. (Leipzig 1937)Google Scholar.

Arguable cross-references in the VS to the History are 22.13–15, 18–19/464, 39.20–21/472, 40.9/473, which may refer instead to an otherwise unknown work by Eunapius on Iamblichus, 41.15–18/473, 46.2–5, 47.5–6/476, 50.15–16/478, 55.5–6/480, 58.25–59.3/482, 59.20–21/483, 63.16–18/485, 66.16–17/486, on which see below, p. 166, 79.1–2/493, 82.26–27/495, and 88.6–7/498.

3 E.g., Blockley (n. 2) i (Liverpool 1981) p. ix.

4 VS 63.23–64.24/485.

5 Ibid. 79.5–16/493: 'Ιουλιανοῦ δὲ βασιλεύοντος, <ἐν> τόπῳ τοῡ παιδεύειν έξειργόμενος (έδόκει γὰρ εἶναι χριστιανός) συνορῶν τὸν ἰεροφάντην ὣσπερ Δελφικόν τινα τρίποδα πρὸς τὴν τοῦ μέλλοντος πρόνοιαν πᾶσι τοῖς δεομένοις άνακείμενον, σοφίᾳ τινὶ περιῆλθε ξένῃ τὴν πρόγνωσιν. ἐμέτρει μὲν γὰρ ὁ βασιλεύς τὴν γῆν τοῖς Ἕλλησιν εἰς τὸν φόρον, ὃπως μὴ βαρύνοιντο. ὁ δὲ Προαιρέσιος ἡξίωσεν αὑτὸν ἑκμαθεῖν παρὰ τῶν θεῶν, εἱ βέβαια μένει τὰ τῆς φιλανθρωπίας. ὡς δὲ ἀπέφησεν, ό μὲν ἓγνω τό πραχθησόμενον, καὶ ἧν εὑθυμότερος. ό δὲ συγγραφεὺς κατὰ τουτονί τὸν χρόνον ἑς ἓκτον που καί δέκατον ἕτος τελῶν, παρῆθἑν τε εἰς τάς Ἀθήνας καί τοῖς ὁμιληταῖς ἐγκατεμίγη. Goulet 62 thinks the synchronism is between Eunapius' arrival and the date of the events predicted by the hierophant. However, κατὰ τουτονί τὸν χρόνον most naturally refers to the time when Prohaeresius εὐθυότερος, i.e., when the hierophant was consulted 'Ιουλιανοῦ βασιλεὑοντος.

The school law is recorded at Cod. Theod. xiii 3.5. Cod. Theod. xiii 3.6, dated 11 January 364 (during Jovian's reign) but ascribed to Valens and Valentinian, is often understood as a repeal of Julian's law.

6 VS 50.20–51.8/478.

7 Ibid. 96.7–17/502–3, 18.10–13/461.

8 Goulet 61–2, on VS 79.5–20/493. <ἐν> is Giangrande's conjecture, and he takes <ἐν> τόπῳ to mean ‘on the spot’. Boissonade emended τόπῳ of the manuscript to τόπου, i.e., ‘from the field’. Ἑξειργὁμενος could be passive or middle, though for the latter ἐξείργων ὲαυτόν would have been more to the point.

9 Goulet 62.

10 Ibid. 62–4.

11 Fr. 15.6–7/ES 5, 76.20.

12 Goulet 64.

13 Wright, W. C., Philostratus and Eunapius (1921, reprinted Cambridge 1968) 330Google Scholar, dismissed Eunapius' testimony, asserting that ‘it is unlikely that the decree [the school law] was ever carried out with any thoroughness in the few months that elapsed before the Emperor's death’. Goulet himself, ‘Les Intellectuels païens dans l'Empire chrétien selon Eunape de Sardes’, Theologies et mystiques de la Grèce hellenistique et de la fin de l'antiquité, École pratique des hautes études, Ve Section lxxxvi (Paris 1979) 297–303Google Scholar, once argued that Prohaeresius was then a pagan.

14 Libanius Epp. 1366, 1390 reprimand Gerontius' greediness.

15 Ibid.Epp. 789, 1136–40.

16 Julian Ep. 42 Bidez,2 especially 423a–b: Ἄτοπον μὲν οῑμαι τοὺς έξηγουμένους τὰ τούτων ἁτιμάӡειν τοὺς ὑπ' αὑτῶν τιμηθέντας θεούς· οὑ μὴν ἐπειδὴ τοῦτο ἃτοπον οῖμαι, φημὶ δεῖν αὑτούς μεταθεμένους τοῖς νέοις συνεῖναι· δίδωμι δὲ αἵρεσιν μὴ διδάσκειν ἂ μὴ νομίӡουσι σπουδαῖα, βουλομένους <δέ>, διδάσκειν ἔργῳ πρῶτον, καὶ πείθειν τοὺς μαθητὰς ώς οὔτε Ὁμηρος οὔτε Ἡσίοδος οὔτε τούτων οὓς έξἡγηνται * * * καὶ κατεγνωκότες ἀσέβειαν ἅνοιάν τε καὶ πλάνην εἱς τοὺς θεούς. The letter is usually understood as an imperial rescript meant to clarify the school law of Cod. Theod. xiii 3.5. Cf., e.g. Ensslin, W., ‘Kaiser Julians Gesetzgebungswerk und Reichsverwaltung,’ Klio xviii (1923) 84–6Google Scholar.

17 Cf. Socrates Hist. eccl. iii 16 and Sozomenus Hist. eccl. v 18. See also Jülicher, A., ‘Apollinarios’, PW i. 2 (1894) cols. 2842–44Google Scholar.

18 VS 67.23–73.15/486–90 describes Prohaeresius' dismissal and reappointment.

19 This interpretation strengthens, but is in no way dependent on, Boissonade's conjectured τόπου (n. 8).

20 VS 59.21–60.7/483. For the distinction between municipal and private lecture halls, cf. Libanius Or. i 35, where a Cappadocian rhetor, requested by the council of Athens and sanctioned by the emperor, occupies a θρόνος in the agora; i 101–2 and Ep. 405, which describe how, upon his return to Antioch, Libanius first taught fifteen students in his own home, then moved nearer the agora where his established rivals used the Μουσεῖον, and, finally after a municipal appointment, gained the use of the βουλευτήριον; and i 280–1, Libanius' account of how, in the aftermath of the death of Cimon, his son, he withdrew from his formal lecture hall to the confines of his own home: θεάτροις μὲν οὐκ ἧν χρῆσθαι, ἃ δὲ πρὸς τοὺς ἐν τῷ μανθάνειν, ἐπληροῦτο κατὰ τὸν νὁμον…. τὰ δ' ἄλλα προσεγένοντο μὲν ὁμιληταὶ πολλαχόθεν, λόγοι δὲ έργασθέντες ἓμειναν εἴσω θυρῶν. Cf. also Cod. Theod. xiv 9.3 = Cod. Iust. xi 19.1, issued by Theodosius II and Valentinian III at Constantinople on 27 February 425: ‘Universos, qui usurpantes sibi nomina magistrorum in publicis magistrationibus cellulisque collectos undecumque discipulos circumferre consuerunt, ab ostentatione vulgari praecipimus amoveri, … Illos vero, qui intra plurimorum domus eadem exercere privatim studia consuerunt, si ipsis tantummodo discipulis vacare maluerint, quos intra parietes domesticos docent, nulla huiusmodi interminatione prohibemus …;’ and xv 1.53, issued by the same emperors on the same date: ‘Exsedras, quae septentrionali videntur adhaerere porticui, in quibus tantum amplitudinis et decoris esse monstratur, ut publicis commodis possint capacitatis ac pulchritudinis suae admiratione sufficere, supra dictorum consessibus deputabit (referring, as the title makes clear, to the urban prefect of Constantinople)….’ One of the most thorough discussions remains J. W. H. Walden, The Universities of Ancient Greece (New York 1909) 142–53, 266–9.

21 Jerome Chron. s.a. 363, p. 242 f Helm. The wording of Augustine Conf. viii 5—‘… quam legem [Julilan's school law] ille amplexus, loquacem scholam deserere maluit quam verbum tuum’— would then imply the same situation with regard to the Roman rhetor Marius Victorinus.

22 Cf. PLRE i, s.v. ‘Eunapius 2’, where there is some confusion. Since PLRE makes Eunapius sixteen rather than in his sixteenth year when he reached Athens, its dates are one year too low.

23 Goulet 62–3, following Nilsson, M. P., Die Hellenistische Schule (Munich 1955) 34–42Google Scholar.

24 Nilsson (n. 23) 28–9.

25 Marrou, H.-I., Histoire de l'éducation dans l'antiquite6 (Paris 1965) 539–43Google Scholar provides exhaustive references to the epigraphic and literary evidence, plus modern bibliography.

26 See PLRE i, s.v. ‘Clearchus 1’, ‘Maximus 21’, and ‘Priscus 5’ for the principals. Goulet 62 (n. 22), is more confident of an early date than the evidence warrants.

27 The arrival, VS 64.17–24/485, 79.14–20/493; the arrests, 51.715/478.

28 Cod. Theod. xiii 4.1.

29 Ibid. ii 17.1, especially lines 7–9, p. 102 Mommsen: ‘…. cum vicesimi anni clausae aetas adulescentiae patefacere sibi ianuam coeperit ad firmissimae iuventutis ingressum.’

30 Ibid. xiv 9.1.

31 In a forthcoming Brown University dissertation, Eunapius' History: Problems of Chronology and composition, A. Baker raises serious doubts about the general validity of Nilsson's theory of age groups.

32 For Eunapius' attitude towards chronology, see Err. 1.60–90/ES 1, PP. 73.17–74.15; 43–4/ES 44, PP. 85–6.

33 Julian Ep. 42 Bidez2/424a: ὁ βουλόμενος δὲ τῶν νέων φοιτᾶν οὐκ ἀποκέκλεισται. οὑδὲ γἀρ <εἰκός> οὑδὲ εὔλογον ἀγνοοῦντας ἕτι τοῦς παῖδας, …;; Suda E 3889.

34 Fr. 15/ES 5, p. 76. At VS 46·18–19/476 βασιλεύειεν unambiguously refers to Julian the Caesar: πεμφθεὶς δὲ Καῖσαρ ἐπὶ Γαλατίας ούκ ἵνα βασιλεύῃ τῶν ἐκείνῃ μόνον, κτλ.

35 Fr. 43.2/ES 43, p. 85: Ὃτι συνῃρῆσθαι τοῦ πολέμου δοκῦντος Μουσώνιος ἵππον ἐπιβὰς ἑξῄει τῶν Σάρδεων. καὶ ὁ θεόδωρος τὸν συγγραφέα μεταπεμψάμενος ἐδάκρυσε τὴν ἔξοδον, καὶ ἀνδρὶ τἄλλα γε ἀτεραμονι καὶ ἀτέγκτῳ δάκρυα κατεχεῖτο τῶν παρειῶν ἀκρατέστερον.

36 Amm. Marc, xxvii 9.6–8 synchronizes the Isaurian razzia and the death of Musonius ‘Asiae vicarius ea tempestate’ with the urban prefecture of Vettius Agorius Praetextatus (Haec inter Praetextatus praefecturam urbis sublimius curans …’), from 18 August 367 at least to 20 September 368. Cod. Theod. xiv 3.13 (with the emendation of IVN. to IAN.) and xiv 8.2, addressed to Q. Clodius Hermogenianus Olybrius, provide a terminus ante quem of January 369 for Praetextatus' prefecture.

37 Fr. 39.3–6/Suda E 3448, I 292, II 792, and Σ 455, s.v. ‘Εὐετήριος’, ‘Λάριος, ‘Πατρίκιος’, and ‘Σιμωνίδης’ respectively.

38 Chalmers, W. R., CQ n.s. iii (1953) 165–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar, first championed 364. Cf. Blockley i (n. 2) 3–5.

39 Goulet 69–71. Banchich, T. M., GRBS xxv (1984) 183–92Google Scholar, argues for c. 399.

40 Wyttenbach, D., Annotatio ad Eunapium (Amsterdam 1822) 283Google Scholar. For other views, see Latte, K., ‘Eine Doppelfassung in dem Sophistenbiographien des Eunapios’, Hermes lviii (1923) 441–7Google Scholar, and T. M. Banchich, ‘Vitae Sophistarum x 2.3 and the terminus of the first edition of Eunapius’ History, RhM, forthcoming.

41 Strictly speaking, arguments for or against a break in the History c. 378 do not figure in the matter at hand and hence have been ignored. Blockley i (n. 2) 3–26, summarizes the debate.