EUNAPIO di SARDI. - Pagan rhetorician, born about 346; as a youth he was entrusted to the philosopher Crisantio, who initiated him into the doctrine of Giamblico. He later studied at Athens under the rhetorician Proerosio and was also initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries. Having returned to his homeland, he taught rhetoric there. He died after 414.
He wrote a historical work in 14 books, of which only a few fragments remain, in which he displayed all his enthusiasm for Giuliano l'Apostata and judged all the Christian emperors severely. By contrast, the Lives of the Philosophers and Sophists, in which the principal representatives of the Neoplatonic school of the 4th century are portrayed, have come down to us complete. It is a mediocre work, devoid of criticism and full of gossip, superstitious credulity, and insipid rhetoric. In it E. manifests his hatred of Christianity and especially of the monks, accusing them of dissolute life, fanatical fury against the monuments of paganism, superstition, and treachery towards their country.