The notices concerning the rhetorician Eumenius come from the same panegyric, Pro instaurandis scholis.  His family was of Athenian origin: his grandfather had studied at Rome, establishing himself afterwards at Augustodunum (modern Autun) in Gallia Lugdunensis, where he had taught rhetoric in the city’s famous schools, already recorded for their importance by Tac. Ann. 3.43.1.  Eumenius, whose date of birth should be fixed around the middle of the 3^rd c., perhaps not long before 260 (Seeck), became magister memoriae in the imperial court, then was called to the management of the institutions mentioned above by the Caesar Constantius Chlorus.  On the occasion of their reconstruction, following the destruction caused by the pillaging of the Bagaudi, he gave a speech to the provincial governor to ask for support in rebuilding the structures, declaring that he was also willing to commit to the plans for this work the salary of 600,000 sesterces that had been allotted to him.  From this same panegyric we also know that the rhetorician had never previously practiced the art of oratory, and thus that he had dedicated himself to an activity that was exclusively scholastic and administrative; his paganism is mentioned explicitly (par. 10).  Until the first decade of the 20^th c., nearly all the anonymous panegyrics that have come down to us had been attributed to Eumenius by O. Seeck (RE 6.1.1105-113); this position has now been abandoned, however, and more recent scholars of the collection (C. E. V. Nixon, B. Rodgers, D. Lassandro) recognize only the oration of 298 as authentically his.  We have no definitive references on the date of his death, which is probably to be placed at the start of the 4^th c.  [A. Balbo; tr. C. L. Caterine].