Festus

Festus came of humble origins in Trento in northern Italy. His Breviarium was written in 370/371 shortly after that of Eutropius, and was likewise dedicated to the emperor Valens. His career also mirrored that of Eutropius: he was governor of Syria, magister memoriae (a post Eutropius mnay also have held), and for seven years Eutropius' successor as proconsul of Asia, the most prestigious governorship of the Roman East. His history covers the same period as Eutropius (753 BC - AD 364) but in an even shorter compass of around 4,000 words. It was read fairly widely in late antiquity (including by Ammianus Marcellinus, Jordanes, and Isidore) and had a broad transmission into the Middle Ages: there are well over 200 manuscripts in four different families, as well as a variegated vulgate tradition. No edition has fully considered the manuscript tradition, but both Eadie and Scardino and Nickbakht present reasonably adequate texts. There is no conventionally published translation into English (for an unconventionally published draft see here).

Further reading:

• G. Kelly, 'The Roman World of Festus' Breviarium', in C. Kelly, R. Flower, and M.S. Williams (eds), Unclassical Traditions: Alternatives to the Classical Past in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2010), 72-89.


• N.E. Lenski, Failure of Empire: Valens and Roman State in the Fourth Century AD (Berkeley, 2002), 185-96.


• M.D. Reeve, Review of M.-P. Arnaud-Lindet, Festus, Abrégé des hauts faits du peuple romain (Paris, 1994), Gnomon 69 (1997), 508-13