Minor Latin Historians of the Fourth Century A.D.

Abstract

The fourth century historiography was rather the expression of a reflective desire to bring the past back to life; it was the axiom for that idealistic programme which Aurelius Symmachus synthesised in his grief-stricken appeal to render the altar of the goddess Victoria to the Senate with the sententious expression consuetudinis amor magnus est . In fact, the historiography of the fourth century played its own role in the re-elaboration of the cultural and religious identity of the empire after Constantine opted for the Christian religion, sharing with ample resumption the activity of exegesis of the classical texts, which brings to mind Aelius Donatus, Servius, and Macrobius, who were exponents of the greatest commitment to re-propose the idea of eternal Rome under a religious and historical-political profile. Keywords: cultural identity; Latin historiography; religious identity; Rome