FLAVIUS, a Latin historian, of whose life we know but little. Even the praenomen Flavius is uncertain, as well as the race from which he sprung. Some consider him as a native of Italy, others of Gaul, and others again of Constantinople, without our possessing any certain grounds to enable us to decide on the one more than the other. We know that he lived under Constantine Epiphanes, afterwards accompanied Julian against the Persians, and also lived under Valens. But it is uncertain whether the Eutropius named as proconsul of Asia, and another who was prefectus praetoris 381 A.D. be the same person as the historian. His death took place probably in the wars of Valens, and before the death of Sapor, 370 A.D. Eutropius left an epitome of Roman history (Breviarium Historiae Romanae) in ten books, from the building of Rome to the reign of Valens. At the conclusion he promises a work on the same subject in a more extended form, in consequence of a wish expressed by the emperor, to whom it is dedicated; but we are unable to state whether he put his intentions into execution. The epitome has been generally extracted from sources worthy of credit, from some indeed to which we have no longer access. It carefully omits, however, all that may appear prejudicial to Rome: it follows generally a chronological order. The style is unadorned and simple; and we need not be surprised if he exhibits traces of the corruption of the age in which he lived, and that some of his expressions are less refined than what are found in classical writers. There were two translations of it into Greek, of which the one by Capito Lycius, in the time of Justinian, has perished; but the other, by a certain Puericius, is still preserved. See Voss, De Hist. Lat. ii. 8; Fabric. Biblioth. Lat. iii. 9; Moller, Dissert. de Eutrop. Altorf, 1865; Tzschucke, Diss. de Vita, &c., in his edition of the work, Lips. 1796; Bahr, Geschichte der Römischen Literatur, Carlsruhe, 1832.