Justin (historian)

c. 2nd century AD) was a Latin writer and historian who lived under the Roman Empire.

He must have lived after Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus, whose work he excerpted, and his references to the Romans and Parthians having divided the world between themselves would have been anachronistic after the rise of the Sassanians in the third century.

Ronald Syme, however, argues for a date around 390, immediately before the compilation of the Augustan History, and dismisses anachronisms and the archaic style as unimportant, as he asserts that readers would have understood Justin's phrasing to represent Trogus' time, and not his own.

Justin's preface explains that he aimed to collect the most important and interesting passages of that work, which has since been lost.

Trogus' main theme was the rise and history of the Macedonian Empire, and like him, Justin permitted himself considerable freedom of digression, producing an idiosyncratic anthology rather than a strict epitome.