EPIPHANIUS SCHOLASTICUS: A friend and assistant ofCassiodorua (q.v.) at whose request he translated many Greek works into Latin, viz.: (1) the church histories of Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret, which he combined into one; under the name of Historic tripartita, it was the most popular compendium on its subject in the Middle Ages; (2) the collection of synodical epistles sent to the emperor Leo I. in defense of the Council of Chalcedon and in condemnation of Timotheus IElurue (generally known as the Codex Encyclius); (3) the commentary of Didymus the Blind on the Catholic Epistles; (4) the commentary of Epiphanies of Salamis on the Song of Solomon.
Bibliography: Ceillier, Auteurs sacrés, viii. 524, mi. 102; DCB, ii. 159-180.
EPIPHANIUS OF TICINUM: Bishop of Ticinum (Paves); b. at Ticinum 438 or 439; d. there Jan. 21, 496. He was elected bishop in 486 and was consecrated at Milan. He is described as of gracious personality and bearing and of great popularity. In the troublous times that preceded the downfall of the Western empire, Ep.phanius became the advocate and protector of his flock against the barbarian leaders in whose hands lay the fate of Italy. In 471 he went to Rome as delegate of the nobles and populace of Liguria to act as mediator between the emperor Anthemius and his son-in-law the king-maker Ricimer and succeeded in preventing war, though he could not save Anthemius from death by the orders of Ricimer in the following year. In 474 he was the
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ambassador of the emperor Julius Nepos at the court of the Visigothic king Euric, whom he persuaded to abstain from hostilities against the empire. In the same year the Heruli under Odoacer attacked Pavia and destroyed the cathedral; but Epiphanius obtained from the conqueror the remission of five years' taxes for the city and devoted himself to its restoration. He stood in the good graces of Theodoric, who sent him on a mission to Lyons in 494 to obtain from the Burgundian king Gundobad the release of his Ligurian prisoners. Epiphanius was the means of bringing back more than 6,000 men to the depopulated fields of northern Italy. There is a tradition that his body was brought to Hildesheim in 962.
Bibliography: The Vita by Magnus Felix Ennodius is in MOii., Auct. ant., vii (188b), 84-109, and in MPL, lziii.
207-240.
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