Rufius Festus – Wikipedia

Rufius holiday or Festus is an official and a Latin historian who wrote in 370 an abbreviation of Roman history at the request of the Emperor Valens.

We know very little about this character, except that he lived under the reign of Valens and that he was older than him, so that he was over forty years old in 370 ^{[ first ]} . Some manuscripts of his abbreviated name him Festus, other Rufus or Rufius festus, even Rufinus or Sextus Ruffus. The manuscripts give him the title of most clearly (abridged in VC for A most famous ), the first degree of the honorary appellations of senators and officials assimilated to this rank. Two manuscripts give it as A consul , consular, that is to say old consul, which can be a faulty extension of the abbreviation VC; only one manuscript, the Bambergensis designates it as Master of memory , master of the archives, high civil servant post at the Imperial Court ^{[ first ]} .

Rufius Festus is generally identified with the Homonym Festus proconsul of Tridintum, quoted by Historians Ammien Marcellin, Eunape, Lebanios and Zosime, with the only argument to have been Master of memory ^{[ 2 ]} .

According to another less accepted conjecture, Festus the historian would be R. Festus, author of a dedication in verse to the goddess Nortia de Volsinies ^{[ 3 ]} , himself identified with the Avienus poet or his son ^{[ 4 ]} .

We have under his name:

• The summary of achievements of the Roman people , “Abbreviated by the high facts of the Roman people”, a work of historical popularization commanded by the Emperor Valens at the same time as another historical work commanded to Eutrope, the abbreviation of Roman history ^{[ 5 ]} .
• The country of Rome , kind of catalog of monuments in this city ^{[Ref. necessary]} .

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The abridgedness is dedicated to the Emperor Valens, a military who became an emperor and devoid of culture, hence his request for a document which brings him the main stages of the Roman conquest. Festus indicates in 15.1 that the emperor expects information more precisely on Roman interventions against the Persians, against whom Valens prepared in 370 an offensive, which gives the date of the book ^{[ 6 ]} .

The book is very short (a single book in thirty paragraphs), as desired by the emperor. After an introduction which cuts Roman history into three major periods (paragraphs 1 to 3), it is divided into two parts. The first (paragraphs 4 to 14) is devoted to the expansion of Rome under the kings, under the consuls and under the emperors and the creation of the provinces, of which Festus gives administrative status in its time. The second part (paragraphs 15 to 29) recounts the wars against Babylonia, that is to say the Parthians then the Sassanids, from Pompey and Crassus to Jovien in 364. If the first part is quite triumphant, the second Do not obscure Roman failures and encourages prudence: dead of Crassus and Julien in front of the enemy, captivity of Valérien, defeat of Constance II in a recent battle. The conclusion (paragraph 30) announces the future glory of Valens for the upcoming campaign ^{[ 7 ]} .

Festus does not indicate its documentary sources, probably a list of provinces and a series of imperial biographies. He seems to have consulted Tite-Live punctually, and florus at least on five passages. For the republican era, he also seems to have recourse to his memory and his knowledge learned, hence a certain number of errors of details: a false affirmation that the province of Sicily is constituted after the victory over Hieron (paragraph 4, Alinea 1), attribution to Metellus of victory and a triumph over Sardinia and Corsica (4,2), while Eutrope attributes it to L. Scipio, capture of Jugurtha by Marius instead of Sylla (4, 4), Sylla expedition to Spain, what he has never done, etc. For campaigns in the East during the imperial period, Festus and Eutrope probably used an uninsured common source, given their concordances, notably on Trajan and for the campaigns of III ^{It is} century to Carus ^{[ 8 ]} .

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Very short work, the abstract of Festus could be copied in the Middle Ages in a large number of manuscripts (more than a hundred) with other texts of the same type, such as the abbreviation of Eutrope or the epitome of FLORUS. Only the oldest manuscripts are useful for the establishment of the original Latin text, because they are less corrupt by successive copies. The study of these manuscripts made by comparing copying errors, omissions and additions led to distinguish two text classes, derived from two supposed archetypes of the IV ^{It is} century, a first copy signed Festus intended for the Emperor Valens, a second copy of the first with some modifications signed Rofius Festus, addressed to the Western Court and to Valentinian I. The oldest manuscripts in class I intended for Valens are ^{[ 9 ]} :

• Bambergensis E III 22, written in tiny Caroline at IX ^{It is} century, discovered at Bamberg Cathedral
• Gothanus I 101, written in tiny Caroline at the end of VIII ^{It is} century or at the beginning of IX ^{It is} century, sold at the Ducal Library of Gotha in 1795
• Parisinus 6113a, dated the end of IX ^{It is} century, with many common mistakes at Gothanus ; Keep in Paris

Class II comes from an archetype addressed to Valentinian I, and is a copy of the first archetype with vocabulary changes and syntax simplifications, and the elimination of a sentence highlighting the glory of Julien (paragraph 28, Alinea 3 ). The oldest representatives of this class are ^{[ ten ]} :

• Escorialensis Bib. REG. R II 18, the oldest manuscript found, written in oncial in Spain at VII ^{It is} century, containing many faults such as confusions of vowels or consonant
• Vindobonensis 89 , written in tiny Caroline at IX ^{It is} century
• Parisinus n. a. 310a, written in Germania at XII ^{It is} century

• (the) ‘ Feast of the Breviarium of the events of the Roman people » , on www.attalus.org (consulted the September 27, 2014 ) .
• (in) J. W. Eadie, The Breviarum of Festus. A critical edition with historical commentary, Londres, 1967
• (la + fr) Festus ( trad. du Latin by Marie-Pierre Arnaud-Lindet), Abbreviated from the tops of the Roman people , Paris, the beautiful letters, coll. «CUF», 1994 , 81 p. (ISBN  2-251-01380-6 ) .