SOURCE: "Eutropius: In Defence of the Senate," Cahiers des Études anciennes, No. 20, 1987, pp. 63-72.

In the following essay, Bird explores Eutropius's treatment of Roman governments as a response to the then-strained relations between the Emperor Valentinian and the senate.

When Eutropius was composing his Breviarium of Roman history in ca. A.D. 369 he held senatorial rank'. It seems likely that he had attained this status ten years or so earlier when Constantius II promoted him to the post of magister epistularum². His rank is important because it would significantly affect his point of view and one of the main political issues of the day was the influence of the senate³ Although this had long been a major concern, the accession of Valentinian and Valens in 364, both military men from Pannonia, exacerbated the situation. Apparently Valentinian "hated the well-dressed, the learned, the rich and the high-born⁴". Pannonians and others...