37 - Biography

Summary

The form of imperial biography established in the second century by Suetonius continued to be followed during late antiquity, and was later adopted as a model by Einhard for his Life of Charlemagne. Of other classical forms of biography, such as the life of the philosopher, there is no trace in the Latin west, though the Greek east provided excellent examples in the Life of Plotinus by Porphyry (c. 234–c. 305) and the Lives of the Sophists by Eunapius of Sardis (c. 345– c. 414). The vie romancée, whether its aim was to instruct or to amuse, is represented by a single translation from a Greek original, the Res Gestae Alexandri Magni of Julius Valerius.

The expansion of Christianity in the fourth century transformed or revivified many classical literary genres to fulfil its own purposes. Thus Eusebius originated a new type of history, in which the methods and skills of the antiquarian were united with those of the rhetorician, which had dominated historiography since Hellenistic times. So too in biography Athanasius struck out in a new direction with his Life of Anthony; which provided the model for lives of holy men and bishops for centuries. Latin writers soon took up the new genre, as for example in Jerome's Life of Paul, an entirely fictitious biography of an alleged predecessor of Anthony (MPG 23.17–28). The Life of Cyprian which survives under the name of Pontius is, at any rate in its present form, not the third-century text which it purports to be.