Justin’s epitome is a central source, despite its shortcomings according to modern standards of historical enquiry, for significant parts of especially Hellenistic history, and it is our only window into the important work of Trogus. After much denigration by earlier scholars, Justin has been experiencing a revival in the last decade, and his independence and sophistication are increasingly being emphasized.Footnote ¹ Nevertheless, in order to understand Justin’s epitome and use it in a way that is methodologically sound, a reasonably firm grasp on its date of composition is, as always with ancient writers, central. This has proved elusive: the only indisputable terminus ante quem is Jerome’s mention of Justin from 407, and most commonly Justin is dated either to the year 200 or to the late fourth and early fifth centuries.Footnote ² Such a wide temporal range is obviously problematic for our understanding and use of Justin’s epitome, and in 2016 Giuseppe Zecchini could still rightly state that the dating ‘resta un problema aperto’.Footnote ³ In 2018, two important monographs on Justin arrived at very different conclusions about his date, one supporting the late date and another placing it before 321.Footnote ⁴ In the following, I will supply further support for a late dating of Justin based on his treatment of the obeisance (adoratio) of Alexander the Great.

First, however, let us briefly treat the main arguments of the dating question. The most important single passage has been the opening of Book 41, where Justin writes that the Romans and the ‘Parthians’ (Parthi) had divided the world between them (Epit. 41.1.1), which traditionally has been read as secure evidence that the work must predate the fall of the Parthian empire to the Sassanians in the 220s.Footnote ⁵ However, Justin may have taken over Trogus’ original unchanged, and, most importantly, late Roman writers frequently use Persae and Parthi interchangeably, even within the same sentence and context.Footnote ⁶ The mention of the Parthians thus cannot be used to securely date the work. Another passage that has attracted attention is the mention in Book 7 that the Macedonians brought the infant king Aeropus to the battle lines against the Illyrians, and this motivated the soldiers to victory (Just. Epit. 7.2.7–11). The panegyrist Nazarius, who spoke in 321, also includes this element (Pan. Lat. 4[10].20.1), and there are some linguistic parallels between the two texts. This has been taken as evidence that Nazarius used Justin, providing a terminus ante quem of 321.Footnote ⁷ However, it is possible that Nazarius took this element from Trogus’ original—a hypothesis that is not wholly unlikely if Nazarius, like Trogus, was from Gaul—or that he found it in a now lost writer.Footnote ⁸ Furthermore, Ammianus provides the same story with the infant Aeropus (Amm. Marc. 26.9.3), though in compressed form, and it has been argued that he used Trogus, which would show that he was known and used in the fourth century.Footnote ⁹ Thus, while the parallel between Nazarius and Justin is perhaps not ‘inutilizzabile’Footnote ¹⁰ for providing a terminus ante quem, as claimed by a recent commentator, it is not particularly strong evidence.Footnote ¹¹

Perhaps the most promising avenue has been linguistic studies of Justin. Indeed, the debate appeared to have been settled around the turn of the millennium through such a study: Yardley compared Justin’s language to a database of other Latin writers, and showed that Justin exhibited most linguistic affinity with writers from around the year 200.Footnote ¹² One reviewer confidently claimed that Yardley’s ‘conclusions are irrefutable’.Footnote ¹³ However, there was a central flaw in Yardley’s work, namely that he had employed the Packard Humanities Institute’s Classical Latin Texts for his analysis, which at the time (2003) contained mainly texts up to around a.d. 200. Furthermore, already in 1988, Ronald Syme had produced a brief discussion of words in Justin that point to a late date.Footnote ¹⁴ In 2018, Dagmar Hofmann took the logical next step and compared Justin’s language to the database Library of Latin Texts which reaches far into the Middle Ages. The result was quite clear: Justin shows most affinity with early patristic writers, such as Jerome, Rufinus, Ambrosius and Augustine, and a date in the late fourth or early fifth century thus seems most likely.Footnote ¹⁵

Hofmann’s study provides strong support for a late dating. However, not all have been convinced: it was recently commented that ‘the question of the absolute date of Justin’s work still “remains a stumbling block” and “certainty is hardly attainable”’.Footnote ¹⁶ Others have expressed similar ambivalence and doubt; as mentioned above, Alice Borgna’s excellent book, which appeared in the same year as Hofmann’s, proposes a very different date, before 321.Footnote ¹⁷ The problem is thus very much still ‘aperto’, to use the expression of Zecchini. In the following, I would like to build on Hofmann’s work, which explores the broad structures and patterns of Justin’s language, and delve into one particular aspect, namely Alexander’s demand of obeisance, arguing that Justin’s language used to treat this indicates a fourth-century date and probably one in, or around, the 390s.

In Book 12, Justin narrates the last years of Alexander’s life. Treating the well-known topic of Alexander’s demand to be honoured with obeisance, Justin writes that (Epit. 12.7.1–3):

This passage has so far attracted negligible attention, and has not been treated in the linguistic studies of Yardley and Hofmann or in Borgna’s recent monograph.Footnote ¹⁸ This is arguably not surprising since, at first sight, Justin’s description merely follows a long tradition of historians, most notably Curtius and Arrian, who criticized Alexander’s demand for obeisance.Footnote ¹⁹

However, there is a noteworthy aspect of Justin’s language which deviates markedly from tradition, namely his use of adorare for Alexander’s obeisance and his insistence that this was a royal Persian custom: adorare is often viewed as a parallel to προσκυνεῖν and it is indeed frequently used in the same contexts, especially to refer to religious worship but also to gestures of subservience to earthly rulers.Footnote ²⁰ However, while those writing in Greek, for example Arrian (Anab. 4.9–12), had used προσκυνεῖν to refer to the obeisance demanded by Alexander, the previous Latin critique of Alexander had completely refrained from using adorare. Most notably, Curtius repeatedly uses uenerare instead: for example, he describes the obeisance demanded by Alexander as uenerari uti deum.Footnote ²¹ Valerius Maximus likewise refrains from using adorare and instead calls the prostration before Alexander ‘a Persian salutation’ (Persica … salutatione, 7.2.e11).Footnote ²² Rather, the first use of adorare in the context of critiquing Alexander’s wish for obeisance is found in the Itinerarium Alexandri, probably written by Julius Valerius in 340: Alexander ‘now wanted to be adored and would have none of being saluted in the manner of mortals’ (iam adoratu se uolens salutari, morem mortalium neglegebat, 41).

This, in turn, is part of a wider development in the use of the word adorare. First, it becomes far more common in the fourth century: from 100 b.c. to a.d. 200, there are fewer than two hundred instances of adorare and its cognates, while fourth-century literature boasts more than a thousand instances.Footnote ²³ Second, adorare became very tightly tied to the emperor: kneeling before the emperor when entering his presence had become obligatory at some point in the later third century, and a mass of constitutiones underline that this was presented and perceived as a form of adoratio (not ueneratio or salutatio more Persarum).Footnote ²⁴ The widespread critique of Diocletian’s supposed introduction of adoratio shows that the message was received loud and clear.Footnote ²⁵ Furthermore, the emperor forbade anyone else to let themselves be adored.Footnote ²⁶ Julius Valerius’ use of adorare for the obeisance of Alexander was thus completely natural and expected in the 340s. The only other writer to describe the obeisance of Alexander with adorare is Justin, and his choice to do so, rather than using uenerare or another expression, is most easily explained in the same way: he lived in a period when obeisance performed before a ruler was perceived as adoratio.

Justin’s portrayal of the adoratio as royal and Persian likewise points to the fourth century. Previous critique of Alexander had consistently perceived the obeisance of Alexander as a divine honour: in Arrian, Alexander wished to receive obeisance as the son of Jupiter, and Callisthenes then delivers a speech in which he avows that mortals should be kissed while gods should be ‘honoured with proskynesis’ (Anab. 4.11.2).Footnote ²⁷ Likewise, Curtius writes that Alexander believed himself to be the son of Jupiter and wished to ‘usurp divine honours’ (caelestes honores usurparet, 8.5.5). Therefore, he ordered the Macedonians to ‘venerate him in Persian fashion’ (more Persarum … uenerabundos, 8.5.6). Valerius Maximus, like Curtius and Arrian, asserts that Alexander viewed Jupiter as his father and ‘wearying of Macedonian manners and attire he took up Persian dress and customs; scorning mortal state he imitated divine. He was not ashamed to falsify his identity as a son, a citizen, and a human being’ (9.5.e1).Footnote ²⁸ Although not mentioned explicitly, Valerius Maximus is quite clearly referring to the story of Alexander demanding obeisance, and again it is presented as a divine honour. This fits well with the intellectual traditions going back to Classical Greece where proskynesis had been viewed as a gesture that should be reserved for the gods.Footnote ²⁹ By contrast, Justin mentions nothing of divine honours, and instead describes the obeisance (adoratio) as a form of royal pride.

This, in turn, parallels the well-known fourth-century critique of Diocletian supposedly introducing adoratio, a critique presented in very similar terms by Aurelius Victor, Jerome, Eutropius and Ammianus Marcellinus. Eutropius writes thus: ‘Diocletian was the first to introduce into the Roman empire a ceremony suited rather to royal usages than to Roman liberty, giving orders that he should be adored, whereas all emperors before him were only saluted’ (qui imperio Romano primus regiae consuetudinis formam magis quam Romanae libertatis inuexerit adorarique se iussit, cum ante eum cuncti salutarentur, 9.26).Footnote ³⁰ Thus, Eutropius presents adoratio as a royal (regius) custom, and Ammianus Marcellinus likewise describes it as ‘royal’ (regius) (15.5.18).Footnote ³¹ It is noteworthy that both Eutropius and Ammianus Marcellinus, like Justin, eschew any mention of religious overtones of the adoratio, and instead portray it as a royal custom, using regius, the same word used by Justin for Alexander’s adoratio.Footnote ³²

The emphasis on the royal nature of the adoratio offered to Alexander in Justin is strange, since the Macedonian obviously, and uncontroversially, was a king. However, it is readily explainable if Justin lived in the later fourth century when the monarchical nature of the obligatory adoratio before the emperor had been emphasized by writers who saw, not unreasonably, a contrast between the more clearly monarchical ceremonial of their own time and the Principate. Essentially, then, Justin seems to have coloured the narrative of Alexander’s obeisance found in Trogus with the terminology and conceptions of a contemporary situation that clearly paralleled it: the critique of another ruler (Diocletian) who likewise was perceived to have rejected the traditions of his people by insisting on adoratio.Footnote ³³

Indeed, Justin’s description parallels this critique on several levels aside from the presentation of adorare as monarchical: Diocletian, like Alexander in Justin, is criticized for desiring to be adoratus rather than salutatus in Eutropius, Jerome and Ammianus, and, just like Justin, these three writers make a very clear contrast between the two modes of greeting—a contrast that is absent from the traditional critique of Alexander. Furthermore, Diocletian’s injunction that he was to be adored is described with iubeo in both Eutropius and Jerome and so is Alexander’s in Justin. Both Ammianus and Justin present adoratio as a form of mos, mirrored by Eutropius who calls it a consuetudo, while the critique of Alexander did not present obeisance as a custom. Thus, Justin’s description and conceptualization of the obeisance demanded by Alexander parallel the fourth-century attack on Diocletian for introducing the adoratio much more obviously than the other narratives of this episode in Alexander’s life. The only parallel among the sources on Alexander is the fourth-century Julius Valerius who, like Justin, refers to the obeisance with adorare.

The final striking element of Justin’s description to be considered here is his presentation of adorare as Persian. As exemplified by the critique of Alexander’s demand for obeisance in Curtius and Valerius Maximus, Latin writers did not use adorare in connection with the Persians. This is also evident outside of this specific context as exemplified by Cornelius Nepos’ biography of Conon, a general of the Persian king: ‘For it is essential, if you come into his [the Persian king’s] presence, to do homage to the king, which the Greeks call proskynesis’ (sed tu delibera, utrum colloqui malis an per litteras agere, quae cogitas. necesse est enim, si in conspectum ueneris, uenerari te regem (quod ‘proskynesin’ illi uocant), 9.3). Here uenerare is presented as the Latin equivalent of Persian proskynesis. Justin, by contrast, employs adorare above and presents it as Persian, which is not an isolated coincidence: Justin uses adorare or the rarer noun form adoratio five times. Twice it is used to refer to religious worship, by far the most common use of adorare across the first half millennium after Christ, and two other instances are found in the quotation above.Footnote ³⁴ In Book 6 we find the last example: the abovementioned Conon ‘was not permitted to see and talk to him [the Persian king] because he would not do obeisance before him in the Persian manner’ (a cuius aspectu et conloquio prohibitus est, quod eum more Persarum adorare nollet, Epit. 6.2.13). Just as above, adorare is presented as a Persian custom (mos Persarum here and mos Persicus above).

In the surviving Latin literature until the year 500, there are more than three and a half thousand instances of adorare, and we thus have a reasonably clear picture of how this word was used. Strikingly, there is only one other writer in this period who presented adorare as a Persian custom: the anonymous author of the Historia Augusta, written in the later fourth or early fifth century. In the biography of Alexander Severus, it is claimed that Elagabalus had ‘begun to receive adoration in the manner of the king of the Persians’ (adorari se uetuit, cum iam coepisset Heliogabalus adorari regum more Persarum, HA, Alex. Sev. 18.3),Footnote ³⁵ which Alexander then rejected. This presentation of adorare as Persian is evident not only in the biography of Alexander but also in the description of Zenobia, who ‘was adored in the manner of the Persians’ (more magis Persico adorata est, HA, Tyr. Trig. 30.14). adoratio is here again presented as Persian, and it is worth noting that in these passages the anonymous author employs the expressions mos Persarum and mos Persicus, exactly as Justin had done above.Footnote ³⁶ Furthermore, the Historia Augusta, like Justin’s epitome, does not present adorare as a divine honour.Footnote ³⁷

One other writer seems to include a veiled, albeit thinly, allusion to adoratio as Persian, namely Ammianus Marcellinus, who terms it a ‘foreign and royal custom (externo et regio more, 15.5.18)’. Thus the presentation of adorare as Persian in the Historia Augusta and Ammianus Marcellinus probably reflects a current debate in the later fourth century about the potentially Eastern origins of the adoratio.Footnote ³⁸ As with Justin’s use of adorare and his presentation of this as a regius mos, his strikingly distinctive presentation of adorare as Persian is readily explicable if Justin lived in the fourth century and drew on this debate in his excerpt on Alexander’s obeisance.

Thus several elements of Justin’s narrative of Alexander demanding obeisance point to a time of composition in the fourth century: first, in contrast to the parallel sources from the Principate, he uses adorare to describe the obeisance, a choice that fits well with the fourth century when the emperor was perceived as receiving adoratio regularly. It is no coincidence that the only other writer, Julius Valerius, who describes Alexander’s obeisance as adoratio is from the mid fourth century. Second, Justin’s presentation of the obeisance offered to Alexander as regius deviates markedly from the parallel sources’ emphasis on its religious nature and instead mirrors the fourth-century critique of Diocletian for introducing the adoratio. Third, Justin’s presentation of adorare as Persian is clearly mirrored only in the Historia Augusta, and mirrored in very similar terms, as well as partially in Ammianus Marcellinus. Justin’s critique of Alexander’s demand for obeisance thus appears to be influenced by the debates about, and conception of, adoratio in the fourth century. Justin’s work consists of excerpts of Trogus, of course, but recent research has underlined his independence and the degree to which he shaped his history through authorial interventions and careful selection.Footnote ³⁹ Essentially, then, the scenario I am proposing is that, as Justin was excerpting Trogus and found the critique of Alexander for demanding obeisance, his language was coloured by a debate about obeisance (termed adoratio) that was very current among the fourth-century Roman elite, or at least in literary circles.

This would place Justin’s epitome in the fourth century or very early fifth century, and most probably after the 350s when the debate about adoratio was most current. We can venture an educated guess that is even more precise: we know that Justin wrote his work in Rome; strikingly, the only two works to parallel Justin’s characterization of the adoratio as Persian were likely written there as well.Footnote ⁴⁰ Ammianus Marcellinus’ work can confidently be dated to the early 390s, while the Historia Augusta was written after Aurelius Victor’s work of history from the 350s and is often placed in the 390s.Footnote ⁴¹ We may thus tentatively place Justin’s epitome in the same decade or the very first years of the fifth century and suggest that his distinctive presentation of adoratio as Persian drew on an intellectual climate in Rome where such views were common and discussed. This, indeed, opens up the possibility that Justin may have known the Historia Augusta or Ammianus Marcellinus’ history, or perhaps even their authors, although this must remain pure speculation.Footnote ⁴²

This dating of Justin fits well with the profusion of breviaries in the later fourth century, such as the works of Eutropius or Festus, as well as abridgements of longer earlier works, evidenced by Symmachus’ abridgement of Livy and the Periochae.Footnote ⁴³ The dating would also tie in with an apparent renewed interest in Alexander the Great, manifested by the abovementioned Itinerarium Alexandri, Julius Valerius’ Latin translation of the Greek Alexander Romance from 338, and the late antique writings on Alexander preserved in the Metz epitome.Footnote ⁴⁴ Furthermore, the first mention of Trogus as a historical writer is found in the Historia Augusta, which lists him as one of the four great past historians.Footnote ⁴⁵ The increased appetite for epitomes and breviaries, the reinvigorated interest in Alexander and an awareness of Trogus as one of the great historians of the past combine to make the later fourth century a very plausible intellectual climate for Justin’s work. Placing Justin in or around the 390s also fits excellently with the fact that the first mention of Justin is found in 407 and that he in the early fifth century was quite a popular author, used by both Orosius and Augustine.Footnote ⁴⁶ Lastly, Klotz in 1913 argued that the very short books of Justin’s epitome, resulting from the decision to retain Trogus’ book divisions, cannot each fill a papyrus roll, the common writing material under the Principate; instead they appear designed for the codices common from the fourth century onwards.Footnote ⁴⁷

Overall, then, Justin’s treatment of Alexander’s demand for obeisance (adoratio) provides rather strong support for dating his epitome to the later fourth or very early fifth century, and we may tentatively suggest a date in, or immediately around, the 390s, a historical context in which Justin would fit very well. This brings further clarity to the dating of an important source, thereby allowing historians to use Justin in a methodologically sounder manner, and it brings further texture and details to the intellectual life and literary history of the fourth century.Footnote ⁴⁸