Texts and personalities. Justin and his ‘Epitoma’ of Pompeius Trogus

While Livy was composing his history of Rome, a Gaul from the Vocontii tribe, Pompeius Trogus, was working on the Historiae Philippicae, the only known example of universal history in Latin prior to Orosius. A few centuries later, in Rome (although the exact year is difficult to determine), a man named Justin encountered a copy of Trogus’ work. Fascinated by the text, he decided to compose what he described as a breve florum corpusculum. These sparse details constitute virtually all that is known about the epitomizer, whose intangibility was famously encapsulated by Ronald Syme’s remark: “a text rather than a personality.” Yet even the word “text” presents challenges. With the loss of Trogus’ original work—perhaps a consequence of the epitome’s greater popularity—the daunting responsibility of preserving its content, at least partially, falls to Justin. Unfortunately, his epitome is so riddled with misunderstandings and clumsy omissions that it offers little assistance to those attempting to reconstruct Trogus’ original. Consequently, the nature and purpose of the epitome have remained unclear, unless one subscribes to the view, as some have, that Justin’s efforts were hampered by a lack of intellectual rigor. Based on a systematic analysis of the text, this contribution seeks to move beyond these unfavorable judgments of Justin’s work. It questions the assumptions that his selection of Trogus’ material was largely random and that the numerous errors and misunderstandings reflect mere carelessness or a lack of focus. The final section proposes that Justin’s techniques were intentionally aligned with the expectations and needs of a specific type of readership.