'''Julius Valerius Alexander Polemius''' ({{floruit}} {{circa|300}} AD) was a translator of the [[Ancient Greek language|Greek]] ''[[Alexander Romance]]'', a romantic history of [[Alexander the Great]], into [[Latin]] under the title ''[[Res gestae Alexandri Macedonis]]''. The work is in three books on his birth, acts and death. The work is important in connection with the transmission of the Alexander story in the [[Middle Ages]].{{sfn|DiMarco|Perelman|1978|pp=17–18}}

Polemius is tentatively identified by historians with one of the [[Roman consul]]s for the year 338.{{sfn|Jones|Martindale|Morris|1971|pp=709–710}}{{sfn|Barnes|2011|pp=197, 221 (note 37)}} 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 (classicist)|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.{{sfn|Barnes|2011|p=170}} In 345, the same Polemius was a {{lang|la|[[comes]]}} under the emperor [[Constantius II]], and wrote a letter to the exiled bishop of Alexandria, [[Athanasius of Alexandria|Athanasius]], encouraging him to return to his see.{{sfn|Jones|Martindale|Morris|1971|p=710}}

The complete ''Res gestae'' is known from four manuscripts and five fragments. It circulated more widely in several [[epitome]]s produced in the eighth and ninth centuries, the most prominent of which is the ''Zacher Epitome'', named after its first editor, [[Julius Zacher]], and known from 67 manuscripts. The latter retains most of the first book and progressively less of books two and three. It only mentions the ''[[Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem]]'' in passing, which was thus often copied alongside it.{{sfn|DiMarco|Perelman|1978|pp=17–18}} The other popular epitomes were the Oxford-Montpellier and the Liegnitz-Historia.{{sfn|Stoneman|2011|p=14}}

==Citations== {{reflist}}

==References== * {{cite book |last=Barnes |year=2011 |first=Timothy |title=Constantine: Dynasty, Religion and Power in the Later Roman Empire |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |place=Oxford |isbn=978-1-405-11727-2 |authorlink=Timothy Barnes (classicist) }} *{{cite book |first1=Vincent |last1=DiMarco |first2=Leslie |last2=Perelman |title=The Middle English Letter of Alexander to Aristotle |publisher=Rodopi |year=1978}} * {{cite book |last=Jones |year=1971 |first=A.H.M. |author2=J.R. Martindale |author3=J. Morris |title=The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire volume 1: A.D. 260–395 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=0-521-07233-6 |url={{googlebooks|uOHw4idqAeYC|plainurl=y}} |name-list-style=amp |authorlink=A. H. M. Jones |authorlink2=John Robert Martindale |authorlink3=John Morris (historian) |ref={{sfnref|Jones|Martindale|Morris|1971}} }} *{{cite book |first=Richard |last=Stoneman |chapter=Primary Sources from the Classical and Early Medieval Periods |pages=1–20 |editor=Z. David Zuwiyya |title=A Companion to Alexander Literature in the Middle Ages |publisher=Brill |year=2011}} *{{cite book |last1=Wulfram |first1=Hartmut |last2=Gerhold |first2=Katharina |last3=Schöffberger |first3=Gregor |last4=Schön |first4=Katharina-Maria |title=Der lateinische Alexanderroman des Iulius Valerius: Sprache, Erzählung, Kontext |date=2023 |publisher=De Gruyter |location=Berlin Boston, Mass |isbn=9783111085586}}

==External links== * Julius Valerius. [https://archive.org/details/iulivalerialexa00kbgoog/page/n4/mode/2up ''Res gestae Alexandri Macedonis translatae ex Aesopo graeco.''] Lipsiae, 1888.

{{s-start}} {{s-off}} {{s-bef|before=Felicianus|before2=[[Fabius Titianus]]}} {{s-ttl|title=[[List of Roman consuls|Roman consul]]|years=338|with=Ursus}} {{s-aft|after=[[Constantius II|Constantius Augustus]] II|after2=[[Constans I|Constans Augustus]]}} {{s-end}}

{{Authority control}}

{{AncientRome-bio-stub}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Polemius, Julius Valerius Alexander}} [[Category:3rd-century writers in Latin]] [[Category:3rd-century Romans]] [[Category:4th-century writers in Latin]] [[Category:4th-century Romans]] [[Category:4th-century translators]] [[Category:Comites]] [[Category:Greek–Latin translators]] [[Category:4th-century Roman consuls]] [[Category:Julii]] [[Category:Post–Silver Age Latin writers]] [[Category:Valerii]]