Preface
PREFACE PREFACE After the death of his brother Constans in 350, Constantius II was the last surviving son of Constantine the Great and the only 'legitimate' Augustus of the Roman empire. Over the following decade he became progressively more involved in attempts to define Christian orthodoxy and so aroused the ire of the three bishops whose works appear in this volume. Perhaps appropriately, I have also spent a decade producing these translations of their bitter invectives against that emperor. I originally submitted the proposal for this volume in 2005, when I was still a doctoral student at Clare College, Cambridge. My research focused on the ways in which Athanasius, Hilary and Lucifer engaged with tropes of political and religious discourse in order to create sharply contrasting images of both themselves and their 'Arian' opponents, with the latter being led by the impious tyrant Constantius. A revised and expanded version of this thesis became my first monograph, entitled Emperors and Bishops in Late Roman
Invective, which was published by Cambridge University Press in 2013.
This Translated Texts for Historians volume should, therefore, be seen as a counterpart to it, providing annotated English translations of the most important texts discussed in that book and so, I hope, bringing the subject of late-antique invective to a wider audience.
Many individuals and organisations contributed towards the creation of this volume. It was made possible by the A. G. Leventis Foundation, whose generous award of the Leventis Scholarship in Hellenic Studies funded my doctoral studies, as well as the Master and Fellows of Clare
College, Cambridge, the Faculty of Classics and the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers of the City of London, who all provided financial support during this time; by Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, who kindly awarded me a Junior Research Fellowship; and by the Arts and Humanities
Research Council, whose grant of an Early Career Fellowship gave me the research leave during which I made the final amendments to this book.
I would like to thank my doctoral supervisor, Christopher Kelly, who has provided immeasurable support at every stage of this project; Barrie
IMPERIAL INVECTIVES AGAINST CONSTANTIUS II
Fleet, who helped with the preparation of the original proposal; Rosamond McKitterick and Mark Humphries, who were extremely genial examiners of my doctoral thesis; Richard Price, who was a very helpful and attentive reader of my translation of Athanasius; Mary Whitby, who has guided me through the last decade as an exceptional editor, as well as also taking the time to improve my translations of Hilary and Lucifer; Gillian Clark and Mark Humphries (again), who, together with Mary Whitby, Richard
Price and Jenny Barry, provided expert advice for the preparation of the introduction and glossary; my student intern, Friederike Ach, who checked my references and footnotes meticulously; Michael Whitby and Mark Edwards, who gave permission for the map to be based on the one in Constantine and Christendom (Liverpool University Press, 2003), which is, in turn, based on the map drawn by David Taylor in The Ecclesiastical
History of Evagrius Scholasticus (Liverpool University Press, 2000); Mark Humphries (yet again) for drawing the cover image; and my colleagues at Sidney Sussex College and the Universities of Sheffield and Exeter, who have created a succession of extremely pleasant environments in which to carry out this work. Finally, my thanks, as always, go to my friends and family, who have for many years tolerated my fascination with angry bishops.