Celestial signs, seers, and sibyls: Claudian's Eutropius and the fourth-century poetics of hate speech

In this article, we look at how the late Latin poet Claudian applied a broad palette of earlier rhetorical and literary devices to present the eunuch Eutropius, consul in the East in 399 CE, as a kind of dirum, that is, a physical portent of impending doom that requires immediate expiation. Claudian, seemingly working hand in hand with Stilicho, the most influential of Honorius’ generals in the West, cleverly applies tropes from a wide variety of earlier Latin poets, such as Juvenal, Lucan, Ovid, and Vergil, to cast his subject as a foul harbinger of decline. In addition, we argue that Claudian did so in a way that embraces both pagan and Christian traditions, especially in view of Constantine the Great’s appropriation of elements of earlier Roman superstition, such as the Sybilline oracles, and the Christian embrace of Stoicism, with its emphasis on civic virtue and moral restraint. This melding of both pagan and Christian world views allows Claudian to portray Eutropius not only as a monstrous entity that is an affront to religion both old and new, but also as a kind of pseudo-sibyl, albeit one so fraudulent that he remains spectacularly unaware of his own oracular failings.