Last Pagans, Source Criticism and Historiography of the Late Antiquity

Abstract

In his attempt to dismantle the notion of a pagan-senatorial reaction in Late Antiquity, Alan Cameron, in his major work “The Last Pagans of Rome”, also covers historiographical matters in great detail. He argues that the supposition of a biased Latin historiography at the end of the fourth century, which viewed the recent imperial past from an anti-Christian perspective and was supported by the senatorial class – as put forth by Paschoud on the grounds of evidence found in Zosimus – is based on misinterpretations and mistakes. Accordingly, the same holds true regarding the tradition of secular historiography preserved in Zonaras, known as the “Leoquelle”. But as far as Zonaras is concerned, Cameron’s polemic proves to fall short on account of evidence based on source criticism. Alan Cameron’s long anticipated book on the Last Pagans, which appeared in 2011, is the culmination of the author’s efforts over several decades to describe the late antique pagan milieu of the city of Rome.2 Cameron rejects the view that there was a “pagan reaction” against Christianity at the end of the fourth century, driven by educated senators resident in Rome, reflected in literary and artistic creations, and culminating in Nicomachus Flavianus’ support of Eugenius. Cameron derides this view of things as “myth”, which still remains everywhere to be found. The evidence cited by Cameron may not always be as devastating as he implies,3 and whether the thesis of a pagan reaction as he presents it is still widely believed and not long since abandoned in favor of other models that do not reduce everything to the dichotomy of Pagan and Christian need not concern us here; likewise, one might question whether the Battle on the Frigidus “on the standard modern view” really was “a watershed of European history”.4 All that aside: through Cameron’s argumentative ceterum censeo, over hundreds of pages, the reader gets to know numerous facets of late Roman intellectual life, and Cameron’s expertise in this field is undisputed. A detailed discussion of this provocative, feisty book would balloon into a monograph; this is true especially of Cameron’s handling of the Carmen contra paganos, Macrobius’ Saturnalia, the Historia Augusta, the interpretation of the contorniates, and the ivory diptychs. In both chapters on Nicomachus Flavianus, Cameron does my 1992 dissertation the honor of detailed criticism. In consequence of his belief  Translation by J. Dillon.  Alan Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome, Oxford .  Thus, for example, the very brief synthesis by S. Mitchell, A History of the Later Roman Empire. AD –, Oxford , –, attacked by Cameron (cf. fn. ) , n. .  Cameron (cf. fn. ) . in the non-existence of Pagan-Roman literature and Pagan-Roman ideology, Cameron’s goal is to refute the hypothesis that there are traces of the existence of a detailed, late antique historical source that was used both by Ammianus and, by whatever circuitous route it reached him, by Zonaras, and which could potentially be associated with the Annals of Nicomachus Flavianus. By discussing this question in detail, Cameron simultaneously intends once and for all to meet the charge that Anglo-Saxon scholars (Barnes, Burgess, Cameron) have not adequately appreciated continental European scholarship.5 In this way the riposte to the Bleckmann-Paschoud thesis should be complete.6 There is no doubt that the Byzantine source material for late antique imperial history is complex. That notwithstanding it is essential for the history of late antique historiography. Given the scantiness of what survives, scholars cannot ignore the evidence and additional material of the Byzantine tradition, but must integrate and digest it. Building on research from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in my dissertation7 – the real focus of which, however, was the history of the third century – I came to two major conclusions: 1.) A valuable narrative source, namely the so-called Leoquelle (“Leo-source”) can be reconstructed in Zonaras,which appears to be related to the Anonymus post Dionem, a source in the Chronikon of the Logothete (identified in “Leo Grammatikos” especially by its agreement with Kedrenos) and some excerpts from so-called “Salmasian” John of Antioch; 2.) this source,which presumably goes back to Petros Patrikios, itself made use of a valuable, presumably Latin tradition from the late fourth century. Certainly many details in my beginner’s work are debatable and some conclusions hasty or mistaken. For example, I would no longer follow the verdict of older source research and characterize Eunapios’s history as a historical pamphlet.8  Accordingly, considered the latest, authoritative scholarly by, e.g., R. W. Burgess – M. Kulikowski, Mosaics of Time. The Latin Chronicle Traditions from the First Century BC to the Sixth Century AD. Volume I. A Historical Introduction to the Chronicle Genre from its Origins to the High Middle Ages, Turnhout , , n. .  Cameron (cf. fn. )  f. The theses that have been proposed concerning Nicomachus Flavianus are regarded as “bad source criticism”. The upshot of Cameron’s remarks as it seems to me is that this Continental-European source criticism is supposedly the pseudo-scientific, quasi-astrological counterpart to serious, quasi-astronomical Anglo-Saxon research.  Bruno Bleckmann, Die Reichskrise des III. Jahrhunderts in der spätantiken und byzantinischen Geschichtsschreibung. Untersuchungen zu den nachdionischen Quellen der Chronik des Johannes Zonaras, Munich .  Cf.W. Schmid, s.v. Eunapios, RE VI, , col. : an “unhistorischer Kopf”. Cameron (cf. fn. )  merely cites the expression “ein triviales Geschichtspamphlet” out of its context in my dissertation. The text reads with a qualifying relative clause: “ein triviales Geschichtspamphlet, das historische Zusammenhänge bewußt zerstörte” etc. The idea behind this section of my analysis, which Cameron fails to grasp, is that the causal connections offered by the Leo-source, for instance when confirming constitutional matters, are more plausible and “more rational” than in Eunapios. Similar truncations may be found in other critical remarks of Cameron’s. It was, for instance, indeed problematic that, following part of the secondary literature, I connected Sicorius Probus with the Anicii 104 Bruno Bleckmann