Nummius Aemilianus Dexter

Nummius Aemilianus Dexter[1][2][3] (fl. 380–395), often erroneously called Flavius Lucius Dexter,[4][5][6] was a figure of the late fourth century, reported as a historian, and a friend of St Jerome. He was the son of St Pacian, an imperial office-holder, and dedicatee of a work of Jerome, the De Viris Illustribus.[1] He also served as proconsul of Asia under emperor Theodosius I (r. 379–395) and hold the position of praetorian prefect of Italy in 395.[3]

Dexter was the supposed author of a chronicle, called the Omnimoda Historia or the Chronicle of Pseudo-Dexter. It was in fact a forgery, one of a number of Jerónimo Román de la Higuera's (1538–1611), who published a collection of false documents in 1594 attributed to "Flavius Lucius Dexter" (alongside "Marcus Maximus" and "Eutrandus").[7][6] The suspect authorship has been widely known since the work of the Spanish bibliographer Nicolás Antonio, the Censura de historias fabulosas, published in 1742.[6] Doubts were already cast on these false chronicles before 1600, but controversy continued late into the eighteenth century.[8] In the nineteenth century there were still references to the Chronicle as genuine,[9] e.g. its inclusion in Volume 31 of the Patrologia Latina.[10]

There is a second work attributed to him, In prophetam Danielis de quatuor animalibus ("Against the prophet Daniel on the four animals").[11]

Notes
  1. Lössl, Josef (2016). “Dexter, Nummius Aemilianus”. Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle. Brill Online.
  2. Van Hoof, Lieve; Van Nuffelen, Peter, eds. (2020-06-25), "Nummius Aemilianus Dexter", The Fragmentary Latin Histories of Late Antiquity (AD 300–620) (1 ed.), Cambridge University Press, pp. 59–63, doi:10.1017/9781108333047.005, ISBN 978-1-108-33304-7, retrieved 2023-01-17
  3. A. H. M. Jones; J. R. Martindale; J. Morris (1971). "Nummius Aemilianus Dexter 3". The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire. Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press. p. 251. ISBN 978-0-521-20159-9.
  4. "Dexter, Flavius Lucius". CERL Thesaurus. Consortium of European Research Libraries. 2019-09-25. Retrieved 2020-02-21.
  5. NPNF2-03. Theodoret, Jerome, Gennadius, & Rufinus: Historical Writings | Christian Classics Ethereal Library
  6. Garrido Valls, David (2016), “Omnimoda Historia”. Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle. Brill Online.
  7. Drayson, Elizabeth (2007). The king and the whore : King Roderick and La Cava. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 53. ISBN 978-0-230-60881-8. OCLC 314766480.
  8. Roberto González Echevarría (editor), Cervantes' Don Quixote: A Casebook (2005), p. 151.
  9. Pearse, Roger (2004). "Dionysius the Areopagite, Works (1897) pp.ix-xvi.: Preface to the Divine Names". The Tertullian Project. Roger Pearse. Retrieved 2021-02-21.
  10. Migne, Jacques-Paul (1846). Patrologiae Cursus Completus (in Latin). Garnier, editores et J.-P. Migne successores, excudebat Sirou.
  11. "Flavius Lucius Dexter (cps2)". Corpus Corporum. Universität Zürich (UZH). Retrieved 2021-02-21.
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