Hérodien

Biography

Hérodien (165? - 255?) was a Roman historian of Greek expression. The little which one knows of him can be deduced from its work known under the title of Histoire of the Roman Emperors of Marc-Aurèle to Gordien III .

“For me, he says, I attended the history which I undertake to write; it is neither unknown, nor without witnesses; she lives very recent in the memory of my readers; I want to write it with a religious respect for truth… The great number of princes who “in short the sixty years interval, passed on the throne, made this time fertile in facts new and originaux.
(Ier (preamble) delivers)

“I will limit my spot with the posterior facts with died of Marc-Aurèle; they form the memories of my whole life; I saw them, I heard them; I took there share in my functions near the prince or of the State. ”
(Book 1st, CH. IV)

“The only goal, says it, that I would have proposed, it is to join together in only one table the important facts of which I was the witness under the reign of several princes and during one seventy years time. ”
(Book II, CH. XLIX)

Undoubtedly originating in Minor Asia, it remained with Rome of the end of to the Années 240. Its historical work was consulted at the end of by the author of the Histoire Auguste .

Work

History of the Roman Emperors of Gordian Marc-Aurèle to III .

The history of Hérodien contains in a sixty years space seventeen emperors, knowledge: Convenient, Pertinax, Didius Julianus, Niger, Albinus, Severe Septime, Géta, Caracalla, Macrin, Héliogabale, Alexandre Sévère, Maximin, Gordian, Gordian the son, Maxime, Balbin, Gordian III.

Style

Very attached to the Greek culture, Hérodien seems to write primarily for a public pertaining to the provinces hellénophones of the empire. Its style and its method take as a starting point the Greek historical tradition resulting from Thucydide. It however always does not have the brilliance and the rigor of this last. Hérodien does not present a rigorous chronology always indeed and is far from being always exact, sometimes yielding to the pleasure of the writing, it enjolive undoubtedly its narration of the events, or retranscribed not very founded rumors. He was however sometimes the eyewitness of the events which he retranscribes: he was present in Rome in 192 and 204. Man undoubtedly writing at the time of the difficulties which strike the empire towards 250, Hérodien shows an attachment with a stable capacity and legitimates, corresponding to political waitings of the municipal aristocracies, conversely he testifies to prejudices and a very strong mistrust towards the soldiers of the Roman army.

“It is at that time especially that the corruption of the soldiers started. Since this time they showed insatiable and hideous cupidity, and posted the greatest contempt for the sovereign. They had seen triumphing their audacity and Pertinax to die without avenger; the empire had been sold by the auction and buy, without nobody opposing a similar infamy; this impunity encouraged them, gave birth to their ashamed excess and fomented their indiscipline. They often pushed until the assassination their cupidity and their contempt for the prince. ”
(delivers II, XXV)

French translations

Roman History since the death of Marc-Aurèle , trad: Halévy, Paris, 1871
History of the Roman Emperors of Gordien Marc-Aurèle III , trad: D. Castlings, Paris, 1990

On the fabric

http://remacle.org/bloodwolf/historiens/herodien/table.htm in text mode on the site of Philippe Remacle

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