The Lost History of Sextus Aurelius Victor

by Justin Stover and George Woudhuysen

“At some point in the later 4th century AD, perhaps around 380, the famous and irascible translator, Christian theologian, and general polymath, St Jerome, sat down to write a letter. Unsurprisingly, it was about books. His addressee was one Paul, a centenarian bibliophile who lived in Concordia near Aquileia, an important ancient city on the Adriatic. Two of the books Jerome asked for were what we might expect: the commentary on the Gospels of Fortunatian, sometime bishop of Aquileia, and the letters of the Christian schismatic Novatian. The third is rather more surprising – the History of Sextus Aurelius Victor…”

St Jerome looking rather wearied by his scholarly labours: Saint Jerome in his study, Pieter Coecke van Aelst, 1530 (Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD, USA).

Read the rest at Antigone here.