Julius Valerius Alexander Polemius

Julius Valerius Alexander Polemius (third to fourth century AD) was a translator of the Greek Pseudo-Callisthenes, the romantic history of Alexander the Great, to the Latin Res gestae Alexandri Macedonis, in three books: birth; acts; death. The work is important in connection with the transmission of the Alexander story in the Middle Ages.

Alexander Polemius is tentatively identified by historians with one of the Roman consuls for the year 338. The appointment was unusual, as the emperor Constantine I had died the previous year, and custom prescribed that a new emperor – in this case, Constantine's sons – assumed the consulship in the year following his accession. This led Timothy Barnes to suggest that Polemius, who was probably a general, played a leading role in the purge which killed many members of the imperial family in 337, securing the succession of Constantine's sons, and that he received the consulship as a belated reward for this service. In 345, the same Polemius was a comes under the emperor Constantius II, and wrote a letter to the exiled bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius, encouraging him to return to his see.

References

• Barnes, Timothy (2011). Constantine: Dynasty, Religion and Power in the Later Roman Empire. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-405-11727-2.
• Jones, A.H.M.; J.R. Martindale & J. Morris (1971). The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire volume 1: A.D. 260–395. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-07233-6.

External links

• Julius Valerius. Res gestae Alexandri Macedonis translatae ex Aesopo graeco. Lipsiae, 1888.