Olympiodorus of Thebes

Olympiodorus of Thebes (; born c. 380, fl. c. 412–425 AD) was a Roman historian, poet, philosopher and diplomat of the early fifth century. He produced a History in twenty-two volumes, written in Greek, dedicated to the Emperor Theodosius II, detailing events in the Western Roman Empire between 407 and 425. who flourished in a Christian court, and whose work influenced several subsequent historians, including writers of ecclesiastical history.

Life Olympiodorus was born between 365 and 380 in Thebes (modern Luxor, Egypt), in the Roman province of Thebaïd, into a curial family. This was perhaps to settle a dispute between rival candidates, ensuring the choice of the Emperor. Or to support an official programme of copying classical texts following Visigothic invasions. there are several compelling reasons to think he did: his detailed knowledge of affairs since 407; his observations on the coastline of Italy; the citing of facts and statistics that would have been available in the city archives at Rome; and his amazement at the actual grandeur of Rome and the wealth of its aristocracy. One hexameter, presumably his own, appears in the description of the residences of the wealthy on his visit to Rome, which contained hippodromes, fountains, shrines, and many of the other attributes of a town: "One house is a town; a city has ten thousand towns" , and the whole history covers the period from the seventh consulship of Honorius to the accession of Valentinian III. We are told that the marriage of Placidia and the Goth Ataulf occurred in the month of January, and her marriage to Constantius III was in the eleventh consulship of Honorius and the second of Constantius. Olympiodorus transliterated every Roman title into Greek, an unusual practice: Greek historians avoided transliteration, often by leaving out the officials' titles altogether. Thompson points out that Olympiodorus's idiosyncrasies of style: the Latinisms, slang (vernacular Greek), He mentions the poet Peisander, whom he credits with providing the connection between the Argonauts and the founding of Emona. There are linguistic similarities between the work of Philosturgius and the relevant passages of Zosimus that suggest Olympiodorus as a common source. The Baldwins offer a list of details suggesting a connection between the respective fragments of the two authors, He blamed Honorius for failing to win over Alaric, either by acceding to what he considered his "reasonable demands", or dealing successfully with his threat.

Olympiodorus advocated support for the western empire by the East, highlighting the detrimental effects of earlier conflicts between the emperor Arcadius and Stilicho. Gillett describes his work as “a monument to the vitality of the belief in the unity of the Roman Empire under the Theodosian dynasty”. Gillett notes the commitment of time and resources expended by Constantinople to support Ravenna in the face of the aggressive Vandal presence in north Africa, and suggests that Olympiodorus's work provided a "timely contribution" to the debate. In the end, Gillett asserts that the history, rather than a record of events for posterity, or a religious polemic, was a realistic assessment of affairs of state.

Paganism

Photius refers to Olympiodorus as a “heathen”, which may have denoted a “dynamic cultural tradition” rather than a “specifically religious commitment”. Olympiodorus was addressing a Christian court, but there was a certain amount of tolerance for pagan ideas: both Theodosius II and the Empress Eudocia were patrons of Hellenistic learning. He felt able to assert that pagan cult objects could help the empire if they were respected (and hinder it if they were not). He credits the downfall of Stilicho and his wife to their plundering of pagan temple treasures, and blamed the Romans’ capitulation to Alaric on their having melted down a statue of Virtus, who then abandoned Rome. In Sozomen's account of the Tuscans who offered to call up a storm to save Rome from Alaric, they assert that their town was saved by “the devotion of its inhabitants to the gods, in the ancient mode of worship”. The Prefect took the suggestion to the Bishop of Rome, who gave permission for the pagan rites to be carried out in private. However, the visitors attested that their rites would have no power unless they were done in full view of the public, and so were sent away. Olympiodorus regarded the professed Christian piety of the “impious wretch” Olympius as incompatible with his public office, and applauds the principled refusal of the general Generidus, who resigned his position in protest at a law prohibiting pagans from holding office. He made ‘sour’ comments about the wealthy Anicii family, who were unhappy at the prospect of losing their near monopoly of the city's wealth after Attalus's appointment of officials “well acquainted with the management of affairs”: Baldwin & Baldwin suggest that his attitude was due to the Anicii being Christian, rather than to their wealth alone. Olympiodorus suggests that Attalus incurred the wrath of the gods by his arrogant words to the Senate "in which he told them with great ostentation that he would subdue the whole world to the Romans, and even perform greater things than that".

Thompson refers to the “great attraction” of Neoplatonism at the time, and suggests this was an early influence on Olympiodorus. However, he did not allow his religious beliefs to cloud his impartiality: he took a dim view of the neoplatonist thaumaturge (magician) Libanius, who promised to repel a barbarian incursion using magic, without the aid of soldiers, but who was put to death by order of Placidia in 421.

His journey to Athens in 416 is prefaced by a tale of three statues that had been interred near Thrace: "three statues of solid silver were found, lying in barbaric guise, with arms akimbo, clothed in part-coloured barbaric raiment, with long hair, turned towards the north, the country of the barbarians. When these statues were removed, the Goths a few days afterwards first overran and ravaged Thrace, and a little later Huns and Sarmatians made inroads into Illyricum and Thrace itself, for these consecrated districts lay between Thrace and Illyricum, and from the number of the statues consecrated, they appear to have been intended as a protection against these barbarous nations”.

Treadgold is sceptical about these statues, finding the dates and personnel involved impossible to reconcile. Another fragment details a statue, endowed with a magic spell, which stood at Rhegium (Reggio Calabria), and which protected Sicily from the fires of Mount Etna (Aetna) and from barbarians attempting to cross the Strait of Messina. To this statue Olympiodorus credited the failure of Alaric to invade Sicily in 410. When the statue was pulled down on the orders of Placidia and Constantius III, Mt Etna erupted, and barbarians invaded Sicily (between 417 and 421).