Pompeius Trogus Research Articles

Artemisia of Halicarnassus: Herodotus' Excellent Counsel

Numerous ancient sources attest that Artemisia of Halicarnassus, a fifth-century bce tyrant whose polis came under Persian rule in 524 bce, figures prominently in Xerxes' naval campaign against Greece. At least since Pompeius Trogus' first-century bce Philippic History, interpretations of Artemisia have juxtaposed her "virile courage" (uirilem audaciam) with Xerxes' "womanish fear" (muliebrem timorem) primarily as a means of belittling the effeminate non-Greeks. My paper argues that although Herodotus is aware of such interpretations of Artemisia, he depicts her primarily as an excellent counsel, a woman who is not only brave in battle, but who is a wonder primarily because of her intellectual excellences in deliberative rhetoric and "geo-political" strategy in the Greco-Persian world.

An Outline of the Manuscript Tradition of Justinus and an Archetype for the “Prologues” of Pompeius Trogus

An Outline of the Manuscript Tradition of Justinus and an Archetype for the “Prologues” of Pompeius Trogus

Judean Piracy, Judea and Parthia, and the Roman Annexation of Judea: The Evidence of Pompeius Trogus

Pompey the Great’s 63 BCE conquest of the Jewish kingdom known as the Hasmonean State has traditionally been viewed as an inevitable event since the Roman Republic had long desired to annex the Middle Eastern nations. The prevailing consensus is that the Romans captured the Hasmonean state, removed its high-priest kings from power, and made its territory part of the Republic merely through military force. However, Justin’s Epitome of the Philippic Histories of Pompeius Trogus is a neglected source of new information for understanding relations between the Romans and the Jews at this time. Trogus’s brief account of this period alludes to a more specific reason, or at least, circumstance for Pompey’s conquest of Judea. His work contains evidence that the Jews were involved in piracy, of the type the Republic had commissioned Pompey to eradicate. In addition to this activity that adversely affected Roman commercial interests in the Mediterranean, the Jews were also involved with the Seleucid Empire and the Nabatean Arabs, both of whom had dealings with the Parthians. Piracy, coupled with Rome’s antagonism towards the Parthians, negatively impacted the Republic’s attitude towards the Jews. Considering the evidence from Trogus, Roman fears of Jewish piracy and Jewish links to the Republic’s Parthian enemies were not unfounded.

Medieval Narratives of Alexander the Great: Transnational Texts in England and France

Medieval Narratives of Alexander the Great: Transnational Texts in England and France

From Maeotis to the Nile: the War between Egyptians and Scythians in the Traditions of Hecataeus of Abdera and Pompeius Trogus

The article considers the evidence on the alleged war between Egyptians and Scythians in Book One of the Library of History by Diodorus Siculus coming back to the work on Egypt by Hecataeus of Abdera (ca. 310s B. C.) and in the works by Justin, Orosius and Iordanes that reproduced the universal history by Pompeius Trogus; it also explores a wide context of these data in the Classical tradition starting with Herodotus’ History. In the author’s opinion, the traditions of Hecataeus and Trogus on this issue are based on a source dating to the 4th century B. C. and telling about the campaign of the great Egyptian king to the Scythian border on the Tanais, on his defeat by the Scythians, on the settlement of a part of Egyptian warriors becoming the ancestors of the Colchi at this boundary, near the Lake of Maeotis, and on the eventual drive of Egyptians by Scythians till the water boundaries and the fortifications of Eastern Delta. This original information was gradually transformed in its transmission (e.g., Hecataeus fully annihilated the motif of the Egyptian king being defeated). Probably, this plot intended to explain Egypt’s loss of its world-dominion and originated earlier than it came to be known to Herodotus. Its version reflected by Hecataeus and Trogus became topical in the 4th century B.C., in the last time of Egyptian independence, when the reflection about menaces to Egypt from outside were much up-to-date. The basis to this plot might be the contaminated memories of the Egyptian encounter with the Hittites and of the wars against the Sea Peoples in the 13th and the early 12th centuries B.C. Its transmission to the Greek tradition of the 5th and the 4th centuries B. C. proceeded from complex contacts of its makers with Egyptian informers, who were probably able to adapt their notions to the Greek cultural lexicon.

THE EMPIRE IN THE EPITOME: FLORUS AND THE CONQUEST OF HISTORIOGRAPHY

Sorting out just what Florus’ condensed work of history is has proved a significant impediment to an understanding of what it might mean. F.R.D. Goodyear's terse précis of Florus ‘The historian’—carefully decoupled from ‘The orator’ and ‘The poet’—in the Cambridge History of Classical Literature begins tellingly: ‘Florus’ outline of Roman history, ending with Augustus, was in late antiquity inaccurately described as an epitome of Livy.’ This is accurate enough. Despite the transmitted title, Epitoma(e) de Tito Liuio (also Bellorum omnium annorum septingentorum libri n. duo), Florus’ work is notably distinct from, say, Justin's abridgment of Pompeius Trogus or the Livian Periochae. Livy looms large in Florus’ history, but at no point in the text is he signaled by name, and numerous structural and thematic features mark this diminutive work's divergence from its huge predecessor. Florus’ Tableau (Jal's chosen title) simply doesn't read as mere paraphrase of Ab urbe condita. He frequently reshuffles, omits, or contradicts material found in Livy, or covers content that Livy does not include, or does not reach chronologically. Alongside Livy, Cato, Caesar, Sallust, Virgil, Seneca the Elder, Lucan, and (seemingly) Tacitus are conspicuous presences in Florus. Much has been said about how Florus fails to be a proper epitome. However, and perhaps more significantly as regards the reception of Florus’ quirky historiography, Goodyear's emphatic non-definition reinforces a summary dismissal of Florus’ value as a text. That is to say, in such a portrayal (and in that of many others), Florus suffers double punishment. He ‘has little to say which is new or remarkable’, but at the same time definitely fails as a reliable compiler. Derivative, and yet faithless: whatever Florus may be, he is something worse than epitome.

Affectus Hispaniae en la historiografía del Alto Imperio

This paper analyses texts written by Greek and Latin High Empire historians dealing with Hispania. Some of the authors have a very positive view (Florus, Iustinus, Appian) while others are clearly negative (Veleius Paterculus, Valerius Maximus) though most of them show little interest, indifference or variety of opinions. When there is interest in the region or praise, it is because the author comes from Hispania or he is trying to please an emperor born in Hispania, but it could also be due to a universal conception of history revealing a critical attitude towards Roman imperialism, as in Appian. The praise found in Iustinus’s epitome should be attributed to the author of the epitome rather than to Pompeius Trogus. This can be taken as evidence for situating Iustinus’s life and work in the 2nd century A.D. Loathing of Hispania seems to have its origins in conservative, ‘optimate’ nationalist circles, who perceive the province as the ‘popular’ region that acclaimed and welcomed ‘seditious’ individuals such as Tiberius Gracchus and Sertorius.

Scrivere del nemico. Pompeo Trogo e la storia dei Parti (Iust., XLI-XLII)

This paper explores the history of Parthia in the account provided in books XLIXLII of the Epitoma Historiarum Philippicarum Pompei Trogi of Justin. The content shows that Pompeius Trogus, on a closer analysis, was not so averse to Rome as previously thought. On the other hand, by choosing to deal with an insidious subject such as the history of the enemies, he seems to be more interested in offering his readers pieces of information that, in all likelihood, were not available elsewhere. He was also interested in arranging the oral sources that he possibly collected from some members of his family, which played an important role in his account, since at least three of his relatives had held important military offices in the Roman army during the most famous eastern campaigns. I will also analyze one of the principal indications of this presumed hostility, the beginning of book XLI, where we read not only that Roman and Parthians share the supremacy of the world, but even praise of the military skills of the Parthians, whose abilities are remembered along with the three defeats suffered by the Romans. I will show how these passages cannot be automatically judged as a demonstration of hostility, because it is clear, from many other parts of the work, that for Pompeius Trogus the duration of an empire does not depend on military strength, but on the pacification and harmony (concordia) both domestic and international. This conception is not so far from the pax Augusta, which was central to contemporary propaganda.

“Just as Fragments are Part of a Vessel”: A Translation into Medieval Occitan of the Life of Alexander the Great

This article examines the Occitan prose biography of Alexander the Great, which is for the most part a translation of Justin’s Epitoma historiarum Philippicarum of Pompeius Trogus. The text appears in L’Abreujamen de las estorias (c.1321-1326), an Occitan version of the universal chronicle by Fra Paolino Veneto (c.1270-1344). It is a rare example of vernacular translation of Justin’s influential work. Studying this unedited text provides new insights into the working methods of late medieval translators.

Justin: Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus . by J. C. Yardley, Pat Wheatley, and Waldemar Heckel. (review)

Justin: Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus . by J. C. Yardley, Pat Wheatley, and Waldemar Heckel. (review)

Attalos III, King and Sculptor

In his epitome Justin related Pompeius Trogus’ story, who apparently wanted to convince his readers that Attalos III, who was insane, accused his relatives of poisoning Berenike and Stratonike. Before he died he had bequeathed his kingdom to Rome. Sallust adduced the words of Mithridates VI, who considered Attalos’ testament a Roman forgery. What we know from Justin’s version is the Roman version, which was produced to justify the annexation of a foreign country and the seizure of the Attalids’ immense treasures. Attalos was one of the best educated Hellenistic monarchs, a lover and patron of the arts and sciences, a sculptor and a man of letters. With the slaying of Attalos III and his closest relatives the Roman senators also terminated the last great project of patronage over the Hellenic arts, letters and sciences.

Seven Books of History against the Pagans (review)

Reviewed by: Seven Books of History against the Pagans Garry W. Trompf Seven Books of History against the Pagans. By Paulus Orosius. Translated with an introduction and notes by Andrew T. Fear. [Translated Texts for Historians, Vol. 54.] (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Distributed by the University of Chicago Press. 2010. Pp. viii, 456. $39.95 paperback. ISBN 978-1-84631-239-7.) In Paulus Orosius’s Historia adversus paganos (c. 418 AD) we possess the only universal history surviving intact from the ancient Greco-Roman world, its narrative starting from Adam himself and ending with the Visigoth king Vallia in 415. To have this monumental work well translated, introduced, and annotated is a timely boon, and not only for historians of antiquity but also for classicists and patrologists. We should not let the previous English translator of the Historia go unappreciated, for Roy Deferrari, who rendered a version for the series The Fathers of the Church that he edited, was surely one of the great Catholic educators of the twentieth century and a brilliant Latinist. But [End Page 773] Deferrari completed his account later in life (attempting to better Irving Woodward Raymond’s efforts in the 1930s), and Andrew T. Fear’s translation is tighter, coming also with a more up-to-date knowledge of research into later antiquity that the newly prestigious series Translated Texts is meant to purvey. For every name mentioned in the text, readers are provided with short biographical notes or directions to a relevant prosopographic entry, and with most place names clarifications are provided (often with cross-references to mentions in other ancient authors). Whenever Orosius cites his sources or they can be traced, the relevant details are provided, and occasionally one finds incisive comments on his idiosyncratic interpretations. It is not as if Fear were the first to attempt this—and perhaps attention should have been given to Enrique Gallego-Blanco’s and also Rodrigo Furtado’s prior forays into this exercise, in Spanish (1983) and Portuguese (2000) respectively—yet the English result is more accomplished. The end product shows the benefits of the massive (largely Anglophone) industry in researching late-antique history over the last half-century. The apparent chief aim of Fear’s enterprise here is to orient readers to Orosius as a source of historical facts. There are a few described events exclusive to Orosius, and at times he offers special additional (although also likely “doctored”) material to known accounts. He had access to texts no longer available to us, and as a Galician he made special use of fellow Spaniard and anti-imperialist Pompeius Trogus (flor. 40s AD), whose great Philippic History has come down to us only through an epitome by Justinus and in various fragments. So there are matters of facticity and slant that interest historians of late antiquity especially, and Fear is above all concerned to tackle these. There also is the question of Orosius’s chronological methods, since he covered such a vast tract of time, valiantly setting so many occurrences in their proper temporal order. Fear helpfully shows how a combined use of official Capitoline fasti, the Jerome-Eusebius Chronicon, and Pompeius’s nonextant and Iberian modus operandi is crucial for the Orosian achievement, and these relate also to the structuring of the Historia into seven books. Whether Orosius’s choice to cover history in seven books is affected by any of his predecessors or some other “sentiment” (the biblical Days of Creation or the classical “seven ages of Man”) cannot be decided. That the whole outcome, on Fear’s account, is “Secular Religious History” (p. 13), not just Christian historical apologetics, is an interesting and well-taken summary of the opus in view. Because Orosius’s historiographical outlook (his retributive logic, providentialism, and supernaturalist explanations) is not Fear’s main focus, references to such authors as Hans-Werner Goetz, Kurt Artur Schöndorf, and Lloyd George Patterson are lacking. For the future years in which differing perspectives will be explored, however, this fine translation and its apparatus will stand us in good stead. [End Page 774] Garry W. Trompf University of Sydney Copyright © 2012 The Catholic University of America Press

The Character of Pre-modern Interstate Diplomacy

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1 See the list of incidents in Sigrid Albert, Bellum Iustum (Kallmünz, 1980), 13–14. 2 So the influential position of W. V. Harris, War and Imperialism in Republican Rome (Oxford, 1979): 165–75. 3 S. P. Mattern Parkes, ‘The Defeat of Crassus and the Just War’, Classical World 96 (2003): 387–96. 4 See A. M. Eckstein, Mediterranean Anarchy, Interstate War, and the Rise of Rome (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2006), Chs. 4, 5, and 6. 5 Mattern-Parkes (above, n. 3), 391. 6 The classic example is the intense senatorial anger at the Republic of Rhodes for attempting to mediate the war between Rome and King Perseus of Macedon in 168 B.C. 7 An important exception, not discussed by Ager, is the central role played by the Epirote Confederation in successfully mediating a true compromise peace between Rome and King Philip V of Macedon in 205 B.C. 8 Harris, War and Imperialism, 164–66. 9 On the authenticity of the sentiments of this speech as it appears in Livy, see J. M. Quillin, ‘Information and Empire: Domestic Fear Propaganda in Republcan Rome, 200–149 B.C.’, Journ. of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 160 (2004), 775–76. 10 Jerzy Linderski, ‘Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum: Concepts of Defensive Imperialism’, in Jerzy Linderski, ed., Roman Questions: Selected Papers, vol. 1 (Stuttgart, 1995): 1–8 (orig. publ. 1984). 11 See Hendrik Mourtisen, Italian Unification: A Study in Ancient and Modern Historiography (London 1998), 23–37, and cf. 59–60 on Mommsen. 12 Allegedly, only ambassadors from Massilia (Marseilles) were exempt from this indignity; they sat with the senators, because of the help Massilia had given Rome at the time of the Gallic sack of Rome ca. 387 B.C. (Justin Epitome of the History of Pompeius Trogus, 43.5.10). 13 The Punic envoys (whom Polybius says had right on their side but still failed, for reasons of power-politics): Polyb. 31.21.5–6. The ambassador from Ephesus: Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum 17, no. 505. 14 Some of these Punic envoys decided not to return to Carthage in the first place (Diodorus of Sicily 32.6.4). 15 This thesis, too, goes back to Mommsen's reconstruction of the eventual unification of Italy. 16 See A. N. Sherwin-White, Roman Policy in the Greek East, 168 B.C.– 1 A.D. (Norman, Oklahoma, 1984): Chapters I and II, and E. S. Gruen, The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1984): Chapter 2.

Heraclean Historians

The rhetorical use of Heracles, well recognized in poetry and philosophy, also occurs in historiography, not only to praise various historical figures but even to flatter the historians themselves since they saw their work as a "labor" for the benefaction of mankind. This conceit seems to have been particularly important for universal historians as shown by the examples of Diodorus, Pompeius Trogus, and Nicolaus of Damascus. Surely philosophers such as Prodicus were influential in the historians' use of Heracles, and most likely Heracles was first explicitly compared with historians by one of Diodorus' predecessors in universal history.

Les livres 41-42 desHistoires Philippiquesde Trogue-Pompée résumées par Justin

This article «A Study of the Books 41-42 of Justin's Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus» is an attempt to determine, through the study of the books 41-42 of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus, what kind of knowledge a learned Roman living in Augustus' era had about the Parthians. It deals essentially, once again, with the question of Trogus' sources. The analysis of the text lets appear that Trogus combines informations coming from a Greek work specifi cally dedicated to Parthian history and civilization, probably the Parthica of Apollodorus of Artemita, with elements deriving from Roman observations and with his own personal refl exions. This is true for the historical chapters as well as for the ethnographical ones. In consequence, one should consider this text as expressing Trogus' own vision of the Parthians, and not as simply refl ecting a lost source.

RHETORIC AND THE RING: HERODOTUS AND PLATO ON THE STORY OF GYGES AS A POLITICALLY EXPEDIENT TALE

The story of Gyges has come down to us in several versions. These include a summary of a version recorded by Nicholas of Damascus, which may descend ultimately from the Lydian historian Xanthos; a fragment of a dramatic version by an unknown Greek author; a brief description by Plutarch; Justin's summary of a version by Pompeius Trogus; and a version by Ptolemy Hephaestion of Alexandria, summarized by Photius. But the most famous and oldest fully extant versions of the story are those told by Herodotus and Plato.

Negotiating Diaspora: Jewish Strategies in the Roman Empire (review)

Reviewed by: Negotiating Diaspora: Jewish Strategies in the Roman Empire Louis H. Feldman Negotiating Diaspora: Jewish Strategies in the Roman Empire, edited by John M. G. Barclay. Library of Second Temple Studies, 45. London: T & T Clark International, 2004. 161 pp. $49.95. This is a collection of six essays originally presented at a conference at the University of Glasglow in 2001. They are built around three themes: local and translocal identities, clarity and ambiguity in cultural expression, and power and the politics of representation as seen in Josephus' essay Against Apion. As Barclay points out in his insightful introduction, these essays serve as a background for numerous global diasporas in our own day, and, in particular, dual identities of peoples removed from their original homeland. Margaret Williams, "Being a Jew in Rome: Sabbath Fasting as an Expression of Romano-Jewish Identity," boldly argues that the references in Augustus, Pompeius Trogus, Petronius, and Martial to fasting on the Sabbath reflect the actual practice of Jews in Rome in contrast to the practice of Jews elsewhere. Inasmuch as, however, rabbis from Palestine frequently visited Rome during the first century, we may object that it seems unlikely that they would not have noted and commented upon such a deviation from the rabbinic insistence that fasting on the Sabbath is prohibited. Moreover, nowhere in rabbinic literature do we hear that the Roman Jews or Jews in any other area had this or any other peculiar practice. Furthermore, Ovid (Ars Amatoria 1.416) and Plutarch (Quaestiones Convivales 4.6.2.671D–672A) describe the Sabbath as a day of feasting. We may suggest that the origin of the view that the Sabbath is a fast day may be due to the fact that the Sabbath is viewed, quite correctly, as a day of abstention from work; and the word nesteia (which means both "fasting" and "abstention"), as used by Strabo (16.2.40.763), who was not a Roman, in reference to the Jews' abstention from work on the day that Jerusalem [End Page 146] was captured by Pompey in 63 B.C.E., came to be understood as a day of abstention in general. Sarah Pearce, "Jerusalem as 'Mother-City' in the Writings of Philo of Alexandria," insists that there is no tension between the notion of Jerusalem as mother-city and Alexandria as home. The fact that Apion accused the Alexandrian Jews of having a dual allegiance, that a bitter pogrom that broke out when the Jewish king Agrippa I visited Alexandria in 38, and that, as Pearce notes, Philo himself (In Flaccum, 46) says that the Alexandrian Jews regard Jerusalem as their mother-city would seem to argue otherwise. Alexander Panayotov, "The Jews in the Balkan Provinces of the Roman Empire: The Evidence from the Territory of Bulgaria," commenting on new evidence of Jewish inscriptions from Bulgaria dating from a period between the third and sixth centuries, notes the acculturation of the Jews, in that while drawing on biblical tradition in the depiction of the menorah, the Jews often had dual names, biblical and Greek, and used inscriptional formulae reminiscent of the non-Jewish environment. But, as Panayotov correctly realizes, it would be premature to draw conclusions as to the degree of acculturation on the basis of so few inscriptions. Paul Trebilco, "The Christian and Jewish Eumeneian Formula," comments on the ambiguous language of this standard formula in inscriptions found in Eumeneia in central Asia Minor, which warns a would-be grave robber that "he will have to reckon with G-d." He convincingly concludes that it is likely that both Jews and Christians used this formula, and he suggests that this may indicate that there may have been close relations between Christians and Jews during this period, especially since we have evidence in the fourth-century Council of Laodicea that a number of Christians had adopted Jewish practices. James S. McLaren, "Constructing Judaean History in the Diaspora: Josephus's Accounts of Judas," theorizes that Josephus used Judas the Galilean and the creation of the so-called "fourth philosophy" as scapegoats, as a means of diverting responsibility for the revolt against Rome from himself and his colleagues and from Jerusalem and...

Justin and Pompeius Trogus: A Study of the Language of Justin's Epitome of Trogus (review)

Justin and Pompeius Trogus: A Study of the Language of Justin's Epitome of Trogus (review)

Justin and Pompeius Trogus: A Study of the Language of Justin's "Epitome" of Trogus

Around 200AD, Marcus Junianus Justinus produced an abridged or 'epitomized' version of the Philippic Histories of the Augustan historian Pompeius Trogus. In doing so, he omitted all he did not find either intrinsically interesting or of use for historical examples. Over the centuries that followed, the abridgement eclipsed the original work in popularity, to the extent that Trogus' original work vanished and only Justin's version survived. In this investigation of the language of the Epitome, the first in almost a century, J.C. Yardley examines the work to establish how much of the text belongs to Trogus, and how much to Justin. His study compares words and expressions used in the Epitome with the usage of other Roman authors, and establishes areas where diction is similar to Augustan-era Latin and less in use in Justin's time. Yardley's extensive analysis reveals that there is more of Justin in the work than is often supposed, which may have implications for the historical credibility of the document. Yardley also demonstrates how much Trogus was influenced by his contemporary Livy as well as other Roman authors such as Sallust and Caesar, and how the Epitome reveals the influence of Roman poetry, especially the work of Virgil.

Justin and Pompeius Trogus: A Study of the Language of Justin's 'Epitome' of Trogus (review)

Justin and Pompeius Trogus: A Study of the Language of Justin's 'Epitome' of Trogus (review)