SOURCE: "Eutropius" in Some Minor Roman Historians, E. J. Brill, 1972, pp. 114-72.

In the following excerpt, Den Boer examines the possible source materials for Eutropius's works, what his histories reveal about ancient topography and chronology, and his attitudes toward Roman politics, especially domination of the barbarians, deification of emperors, and Constantine's conversion.

Eutropius the Man

There are many gaps in our knowledge of Eutropius which will be impossible to fill. Modern scholars tend to identify him with a number of high-ranking officials of the same name who worked between the years 360 and 390. Caution must still, however, be observed. According to his praefatio, a dedication to emperor Valens, he was a magister memoriae. The dedication gives the emperor the titles Gothicus Maximus, so that 369 or 370 would seem to be the most likely date.

The validity of the identification of the historian with the proconsul of Asia in 371, who bore...