Eumenius

▪ Roman orator and teacher

flourished AD 300

      Roman orator and teacher of rhetoric, born in Augustodunum, Gaul (now Autun, France), who was the author of Oratio pro instaurandis scholis (“Oration on the Restoration of the Schools”), an interesting document on the education of his time as well as a vigorous panegyric of Emperor Constantius (Constantius I) I. Eumenius had enjoyed a long and successful career at the court of Constantius and had been appointed magister memoriae, the senior imperial secretary in charge of drafting the emperor's responses to petitions. The oration was delivered in 298 to promote the restoration of the university college at Augustodunum, which, like the city, had been damaged in the disturbances and siege of 269. The oration actually amounts to an expression of appreciation to the emperor Constantius for his plans for reconstruction, which included appointment of Eumenius as principal of the college. Though Eumenius had been promised double the normal salary for his position, a means of maintaining his status since he had formerly been Constantius' secretary, he declared that he would donate these emoluments to the reconstruction fund. In this oration the frigid affectations of panegyric are enlivened by personal enthusiasm.

      From the 16th century onward, other contemporary speeches in the collection of Panegyrici Latini have been ascribed to Eumenius—but without evidence or probability.

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