Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus

Who is Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus?

Gnaeus Pompēius Trōgus, known as Pompeius Trogus, Pompey Trogue, or Trogue Pompey, was a 1st-century BC Roman historian of the Celtic tribe of the Vocontii in Gallia Narbonensis, flourished during the age of Augustus, nearly contemporary with Livy.

His grandfather served in the war against Sertorius with Pompey, through whose influence he obtained Roman citizenship; hence the name Pompeius, adopted as a token of gratitude to his benefactor. His father served under Julius Caesar in the capacity of secretary and interpreter.

Trogus himself seems to have been a man of encyclopaedic knowledge. Following Aristotle and Theophrastus, he wrote books on the natural history of animals and plants, which were frequently quoted by Pliny the Elder.

His principal work was Historiae Philippicae in forty-four books, so called because the Macedonian empire founded by Philip II is the central theme of the narrative. This was a general history of those parts of the world that came under the sway of Alexander and his successors. Trogus began with a legendary Ninus, founder of Nineveh, and ended at about the same point as Livy. Justin wrote an epitome of Trogus' lost work, and in the manuscripts of Justin's work a series of prologi or summaries of the books by an unknown hand has been preserved. The last event recorded by Justin is the recovery of the Roman standards captured by the Parthians in 20 BC. Ethnographical and geographical digressions were such a feature of the work that it developed the unwarranted reputation of being a universal history, never Trogus' intention.