The Famine and Plague of Maximinus (311 to 312): Between Ekphrasis, Polemic, and Historical Reality in Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History

Abstract:In Book 9.8 of his Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius of Caesarea describes a horrific famine and plague that ravaged the eastern Roman empire. Hitherto, scholars have generally treated this as an exaggerated but truthful account of these catastrophes. In this paper, we question the veracity of this account. We first demonstrate how Eusebius masterfully models his account on Thucydides's plague and Josephus's account of famine during the siege of Jerusalem in order to dismantle Maximinus Daia's regime and affirm the superiority of Christian philanthropy. While Eusebius's knowledge of Thucydides has often been disputed, this paper shows that he used not only Thucydides but also the Thucydidean commentary from the rhetorical tradition for his polemicizing against pagans. Having shown how Eusebius used his models, this paper then questions the veracity of Eusebius's famine and plague, suggesting that it was probably a fairly unimportant localized event, which Eusebius catastrophized to serve the Ecclesiastical History's polemical aims against Christian persecutors.