During the latter period of his life, he seems to have been settled at Athens, and engaged
in teaching rhetoric. He is the author of two works.
1. Lives of Sophists (
Βίοι φιλοσόφων καὶ
σοφιστῶν)
This work is still extant. He composed it at the request of Chrysanthius. It contains 23
biographies of sophists, most of whom were contemporaries of Eunapius, or at least had lived
shortly before him. Although these biographies are extremely brief, and are written in an
intolerably inflated style, yet they are to us an important source of information respecting
a period in the history of philosophy which, without this work, would be buried in utter
obscurity. Eunapius shews himself an enthusiastic admirer of the philosophy of the New
Platonists, and a bitter enemy of Christianity.
Editions
His biographies were first edited with a Latin translation and a life of Eunapius
by Hadrianus Junius, Antwerp, 1568, 8vo.Among the subsequent editions we may mention those of H. Commelinus (Frankfurt, 1596,
8vo.) and Paul Stephens. (Geneva, 1616, 8vo.)The best, however, which gives a much improved text, with a commentary and notes by
Wyttenbach, is that of J. F. Boissonade, Amsterdam, 1822, 2 vols. 8vo.
2. A continuation of the history of Dexippus (
Μετὰ
Δέξιππον χρονικὴ ἱστορία)
In fourteen books. (Phot. Bibl. Cod. 77.) It began with the death of
Claudius Gothicus, in A. D. 270, and carried the history down to
A. D. 404, in which year St. Chrysostom was sent into exile, and
which was the tenth year of the reign of Arcadius. This account of Photius (l.c.) seems to be contradicted by a passage of the excerpta (p. 96, ed. Bekker and
Niebuhr), in which Eunapius speaks of the avarice of the empress Pulcheria, who did not
obtain that dignity till A. D. 414; but the context of that passage
shews that it was only a digression in the work, and that the work itself did not extend to
A. D. 414. It was written at the request of Oribasius, and Photius
saw two editions of it. In the first, Eunapius had given vent to his rabid feelings against
Christianity, especially against Constantine the Great; whereas he looked upon the emperor
Julian as some divine being that had been sent from heaven upon earth. In the second
edition, from which the excerpts still extant are taken. those passages were omitted; but
they had been expunged with such negligence and carelessness, that many parts of the work
were very obscure. But we cannot, with Photius, regard this " editio purgata" as the work of
Eunapius himself, and it was in all probability made by some bookseller or a Christian, who
thus attempted to remedy the defects of the original. The style of the work, so far as we
can judge of it, was as bad as that of the Lives of the Sophists, and is severely criticised
by Photius.
Editions
All we now possess of this work consists of the Excerpta de Legationibus, which were made
from it by the command of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, and a number of fragments preserved
in Suidas. These remains, as far as they were known at the time, were published by D.
Höschel (Augsburg,1603, 4to.), H. Fabrotti (Paris, 1648, fol.),
and in Boissonade's edition of the Lives of the Sophists. (vol. i. p. 455,
&c.)
A. Mai discovered considerable additions, which are published in his Scriptorum Vet. Nova Collectio, vol. ii. p. 247-316, from which
they are reprinted in vol. i. of the Corpus Script. Hist. Byzant. edited by
I. Bekker and Niebuhr.