Eutychius Proclus (, Eutychios Proklos, or Tuticius Proculus in some sources) was a grammarian who flourished in the 2nd century AD. He served as one of two

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

tutors for the Roman emperor

Marcus Aurelius Marcus Aurelius Antoninus ( ; ; 26 April 121 – 17 March 180) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoicism, Stoic philosopher. He was a member of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty, the last of the rulers later known as the Five Good Emperors ...

, along with Trosius Aper. He was from the North African city of Sicca Veneria (modern El Kef in

Tunisia Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...

). It is possibly this Proclus who is mentioned by Trebellius Pollio as the most learned grammarian of his age. For his work with the emperor, Proculus was later given senatorial rank, and a

consulship The consuls were the highest elected public officials of the Roman Republic ( to 27 BC). Romans considered the consulship the second-highest level of the ''cursus honorum''an ascending sequence of public offices to which politicians aspire ...

, though it is not clear what year he served as consul. He also required financial support from Marcus in order to carry the financial burdens of a senatorial career, so from here we may assume he was not born into a wealthy or aristocratic family.

Works

His writings are now lost, though there is a (probably fictitious) work occasionally attributed to him titled ''De peregrinis regionibus''. This is likely because of some of the confusion over his identity. Some scholars through the 19th century believed that he was to be identified with the author of a '' Chrestomathy'' which is our most important source of information on the

Epic Cycle The Epic Cycle () was a collection of Ancient Greek epic poems, composed in dactylic hexameter and related to the story of the Trojan War, including the '' Cypria'', the ''Aethiopis'', the so-called '' Little Iliad'', the '' Iliupersis'', the ' ...

. Most modern scholars consider this attribution likely incorrect however, as this was a Greek work and Eutychius Proclus was a grammarian of Latin.

Identity

There was historically some confusion over his identity based on earlier scholarship. Raffaello Maffei, the Italian historian and humanist of the 15th and 16th centuries, published information about Proculus in his ''Commentariorum rerum urbanarum libri XXXVIII'', which was a historical source for many later writers. The work itself was quite unreliable in many places. Maffei identifies the 5th-century

Platonist Platonism is the philosophy of Plato and philosophical systems closely derived from it, though contemporary Platonists do not necessarily accept all doctrines of Plato. Platonism has had a profound effect on Western thought. At the most fundam ...

philosopher

Proclus Proclus Lycius (; 8 February 412 – 17 April 485), called Proclus the Successor (, ''Próklos ho Diádokhos''), was a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher, one of the last major classical philosophers of late antiquity. He set forth one of th ...

with "Tuticius Proculus", even though the two men lived three centuries apart, and states that the philosopher was the one who was Aurelius's tutor. Numerous other confusions stemmed from this error, including attribution of works not actually authored by him, and many later writers made similar errors based on Maffei's writings. As to his name, scholar

Anthony Birley Anthony Richard Birley (8 October 1937 – 19 December 2020) was a British ancient historian, archaeologist and academic. He was one of the leaders of excavations at of the Roman fortress at Vindolanda and also published several books on Roman ...

has suggested that the name "Eutychius" is actually a corruption of the text, and in all cases should properly read "Tuticius". We have an inscription from El Kef that mentions a "Marcus Tuticius Proculus" as '' procurator Augusti'' (that is, financial procurator, or CFO of a

Roman province The Roman provinces (, pl. ) were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Each province was ruled by a Roman appointed as Roman g ...

). This could be the same man, or a relative.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Proclus, Eutychius 2nd-century writers Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown Tutors of Marcus Aurelius 2nd-century Romans Grammarians of Latin