Three Notes On TheVita Probi

Abstract

In 1883 Alexander Enmann demonstrated the existence of ‘eine verlorene Geschichte der romischen Kaiser’. Not all of his arguments or conclusions were valid, but one fundamental postulate is undeniable: Aurelius Victor in 359/60 and Eutropius a decade later independently used a common source, a lostKaiser geschichteof relatively brief compass. This lost work (it ought now to be clear) went down to the death of Constantine in 337, and traces of it can also be discovered in other writings of the late fourth century: in Festus’Breviarium, in Jerome's revision of Eusebius’Chronicle, in the Epitome de Caesaribus—and in the HA. If the HA used theKaisergeschichte, its composition postdates 337— as Otto Seeck stated plainly in 1890.