Augustan History

Augustan History

Cover of a 1698 edition of the Historia Augusta from Ettal Abbey
Author Disputed
Original title Historia Augusta
Language Latin
Subject Roman history
Publication date
 Disputed, possibly 4th century
LC Class DE

The Augustan History (Latin: Historia Augusta) is a late Roman collection of biographies, in Latin, of the Roman Emperors, their junior colleagues, designated heirs and usurpers of the period 117 to 284. Supposedly modelled on the works of Suetonius, it presents itself as a compilation of works by six different authors (collectively known as the Scriptores Historiae Augustae), written during the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine I and addressed to those emperors or other important personages in Rome. The collection, as extant, comprises thirty biographies, most of which contain the life of a single emperor, while some include a group of two or more, grouped together merely because these emperors were either similiar or contemporaneous.

However, the true authorship of the work, its actual date, and its purpose, have long been matters for controversy amongst historians and scholars, ever since Hermann Dessau in 1889 rejected both the date and the authorship as stated within the manuscript. Major problems include the nature of the sources it used, and how much of the content is pure fiction. For instance, the collection contains in all about 150 alleged documents, including 68 letters, 60 speeches and proposals to the people or the senate, and 20 senatorial decrees and acclamations. Virtually all of these are now considered to be fraudulent.[1]

By the 2010s, the overall consensus supported the position that there was only a single author who was writing either at the end of the 4th century or the beginning of the 5th century, and who was interested in blending contemporary issues (political, religious and social) into the lives of the 3rd century emperors. Further, that the author used the fictitious elements in the work to highlight references to other published works, such as to Cicero and Ammianus Marcellinus in a complex allegorical game. Despite these conundrums, it is the only continuous account in Latin for much of its period and is thus continually being re-evaluated, since modern historians are unwilling to abandon it as a unique source of possible information, despite its obvious untrustworthiness on many levels.[2]

Title and scope

The name Historia Augusta originated with Isaac Casaubon, who produced a critical edition in 1603, working from a complex manuscript tradition with a number of variant versions.[3] The title as recorded on the Codex Palatinus manuscript (written in the 9th century) is Vitae Diversorum Principum et Tyrannorum a Divo Hadriano usque ad Numerianum Diversis compositae (The Lives of various Emperors and Tyrants from the Divine Hadrian to Numerian by Various Authors), and it is assumed that the work may have been originally called de Vita Caesarum or Vitae Caesarum.[3]

How widely the work was circulated in late antiquity is unknown, but its earliest use was in a Roman History composed by Quintus Aurelius Memmius Symmachus in 485.[4] Lengthy citations from it are found in authors of the 6th and 9th centuries, including Sedulius Scottus who quoted parts of the Marcus Aurelius, the Maximini and the Aurelian within his Liber de Rectoribus Christianis, and the chief manuscripts also date from the 9th or 10th centuries.[5] (The editio princeps was published in Milan in 1475.) The six Scriptores – "Aelius Spartianus", "Iulius Capitolinus", "Vulcacius Gallicanus", "Aelius Lampridius", "Trebellius Pollio", and "Flavius Vopiscus (of Syracuse)" – dedicate their biographies to Diocletian, Constantine and various private persons, and so ostensibly were all writing c. the late 3rd and early 4th century. The first four scriptores are attached to the lives from Hadrian to Gordian III, while the final two are attached to the lives from Valerian to Numerian.

The biographies cover the emperors from Hadrian to Carinus and Numerian. A section covering the reigns of Philip the Arab, Decius, Trebonianus Gallus, Aemilian and all but the end of the reign of Valerian is missing in all the manuscripts,[6] and it has been argued that biographies of Nerva and Trajan have also been lost[6] at the beginning of the work, which may suggest the compilation might have been a direct continuation of Suetonius. It has been theorized that the mid-3rd-century lacuna might actually be a deliberate literary device of the author or authors, saving the labour of covering Emperors for whom little source material may have been available.[7]

Despite devoting whole books to ephemeral or in some cases non-existent usurpers,[8][9] there are no independent biographies of the Emperors Quintillus and Florian, whose reigns are merely briefly noted towards the end of the biographies of their respective predecessors, Claudius Gothicus and Tacitus. For nearly 300 years after Casaubon's edition, though much of the Augustan History was treated with some scepticism, it was used by historians as an authentic source – Edward Gibbon used it extensively in the first volume of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.[10] However, "in modern times most scholars read the work as a piece of deliberate mystification written much later than its purported date, however the fundamentalist view still has distinguished support. (...) The Historia Augusta is also, unfortunately, the principal Latin source for a century of Roman history. The historian must make use of it, but only with extreme circumspection and caution."[11]

The dating problem

Hermann Dessau, whose groundbreaking work on the Historia Augusta led to its critical re-evaluation in the 20th century.

In 1783, Edward Gibbon had observed that there was something wrong with the numbers and names of the imperial biographers, and that this had already been recognised by older historians who had written on that subject.[note 1][12][13] A clear example was the referencing of the biographer 'Lampridius' (who was apparently writing his biographies after 324) by 'Vopiscus', who was meant to be writing his biographies in 305-6.[14] Then in 1889, Hermann Dessau, who had become increasingly concerned by the large number of anachronistic terms, Vulgar Latin vocabulary, and especially the host of obviously false proper names in the work, proposed that the six authors were all fictitious personae, and that the work was in fact composed by a single author in the late 4th century, probably in the reign of Theodosius I.[15][16] Among his supporting evidence was that the life of Septimius Severus appeared to have made use of a passage from the mid-4th-century historian Aurelius Victor,[note 2] and that the life of Marcus Aurelius likewise uses material from Eutropius.[note 3][17] In the decades following Dessau, many scholars argued to preserve at least some of the six Scriptores as distinct persons and in favor of the first-hand authenticity for the content. As early as 1890, Mommsen postulated a Theodosian 'editor' of the Scriptores' work, an idea that has resurfaced many times since.[18] Hermann Peter (editor of the Augustan History and of the Historicorum Romanorum reliquiae) proposed 330, based upon an analysis of style and language.[19]

Others, such as Norman H. Baynes, abandoned the early 4th century date but only advanced it as far as the reign of Julian the Apostate (useful for arguing the work was intended as pagan propaganda). In the 1960s and 1970s however Dessau's original arguments received powerful restatement and expansion from Sir Ronald Syme, who devoted three books to the subject and was prepared to date the writing of the work closely in the region of AD 395. Other recent studies also show much consistency of style,[20] and most scholars now accept the theory of a single author of unknown identity, writing after 395.[21] Although it was believed that the HA did not reference any material from Ammianus Marcellinus's history, which was finished before 391 and which covered the same period,[22] this has now been shown not to be the case, and that the HA does in fact make reference to Marcellinus's history.[23]

It should also be noted that the results of recent computer-assisted stylistic analysis have proven to be inconclusive:

"Computer-aided stylistic analysis of the work has, however, returned ambiguous results; some elements of style are quite uniform throughout the work, while others vary in a way that suggests multiple authorship. To what extent this is due to the fact that portions of the work are obviously compiled from multiple sources is unclear. Several computer analyses of the text have been done to determine whether there were multiple authors. Many of them conclude that there was but a single author, but disagree on methodology. However, several studies done by the same team concluded there were several authors, though they were not sure how many."[24]

Primary and secondary Vitae

A unique feature of the Augustan History is that it purports to supply the biographies not only of reigning Emperors but also of their designated heirs or junior colleagues, and of usurpers who unsuccessfully claimed the supreme power.[25] Thus among the biographies of 2nd-century and early 3rd-century figures are included Hadrian's heir Aelius Caesar, and the usurpers Avidius Cassius, Pescennius Niger and Clodius Albinus, Caracalla's brother Geta and Macrinus's son Diadumenianus. None of these pieces contain much in the way of solid information: all are marked by rhetorical padding and obvious fiction. (The biography of Marcus Aurelius's colleague Lucius Verus, which Mommsen thought 'secondary', is however rich in apparently reliable information and has been vindicated by Syme as belonging to the 'primary' series).[26]

The 'secondary' lives allowed the author to exercise free invention untrammelled by mere facts,[27] and as the work proceeds these flights of fancy become ever more elaborate, climaxing in such virtuoso feats as the account of the "Thirty Tyrants" said to have risen as usurpers under Gallienus. Moreover, after the biography of Caracalla the 'primary' biographies, of the emperors themselves, begin to assume the rhetorical and fictive qualities previously confined to the 'secondary' ones, probably because the secondary lives were written after the Caracalla.[28]

The biography of Macrinus is notoriously unreliable,[29] and after a partial reversion to reliability in the Elagabalus, the life of Alexander Severus, one of the longest biographies in the entire work, develops into a kind of exemplary and rhetorical fable on the theme of the wise philosopher king.[30] Clearly the author's previous sources had given out, but also his inventive talents were developing. He still makes use of some recognized sources – Herodian up to 238, and probably Dexippus in the later books, for the entire imperial period the Enmannsche Kaisergeschichte (abbreviated as KG) as well as Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, Ammianus Marcellinus and Jerome – but the biographies are increasingly tracts of invention in which occasional nuggets of fact are embedded.[31][23]

However, even where recognisable facts are present, their use in the HA cannot be taken at face value. In the Alexander Severus, the HA makes the claim at 24.4 that Alexander had considered banning male prostitution but had decided against making it illegal, although the author added that the emperor Philip did later ban the practice.[32] Although the claim about Alexander is false, the note about Philip is true - the source of this is Aurelius Victor (28.6-7, and who in turn sourced it from the KG) , and the HA even copies Victor's style of moralising asides, which were not in the KG.[33] Normally, this anecdote would have been included in a Life of Philip, but its absence saw the author include it in another life. This is taken as evidence that the mid-work lacuna is deliberate, as the author was apparently reluctant to abandon any useful material that could be gleaned from the KG.[32]

Estimated amount of reliable historical details in some of the HA’s secondary and later primary vitae[34]
Vita Type of Vita % estimate containing reliable historical details
Aelius Secondary 25%
Avidius Cassius Secondary 5%
Pescennius Niger Secondary 29%
Clodius Albinus Secondary 32%
Geta Secondary 5%
Opellius Macrinus Primary 33%
Diadumenianus Secondary 5%
Elagabalus Primary 24%
Alexander Severus Primary 4%
Claudius Primary 10%
Aurelian Primary 27%
Tacitus Primary 15%
Probus Primary 17%
Quadrigae Tyrannorum Secondary 0%
Carus Primary 17%

Genre and purpose

Interpretations of the purpose of the History also vary considerably, some considering it a work of fiction or satire intended to entertain (perhaps in the vein of 1066 and All That), others viewing it as a pagan attack on Christianity, the writer having concealed his identity for personal safety. Under this anti-Christianity theory, the lacuna covering the period from Philip the Arab through to the end of Valerian's reign is seen as deliberate, as it freed the author from addressing Philip's reign, as by the late 4th century, Philip was being claimed as a Christian emperor, as well as not discussing Decius and Valerian's reigns, as they were well known persecutors of the Church. It also avoided dealing with their fates, as Christians saw their ends as divine retribution for their persecutions. In fact, where mentioned, both Decius and Valerian are viewed very positively by the author of the HA.[35] Further, it is noted that the HA also parodies Christian scripture. For instance, in the Alexander Severus there is: "It is said that on the day after his birth a star of the first magnitude was visible for the entire day at Arca Caesarea",[36] while "where, save at Rome, is there an imperial power that rules an empire?"[37] is considered to be a response to 2 Thessalonians 2:6-7.[38]

Syme[39] argued that it was a mistake to regard it as a historical work at all and that no clear propaganda purpose could be determined. In his view the History is primarily a literary product – an exercise in Historical fiction (or 'fictional history') produced by a 'rogue scholiast' catering to (and making fun of or parodying) the antiquarian tendencies of the Theodosian age, in which Suetonius and Marius Maximus were fashionable reading and Ammianus Marcellinus was producing sober history in the manner of Tacitus. (The History implausibly[40] makes the Emperor Tacitus (275-276) a descendant and connoisseur of the historian.) In fact in a passage on the Quadriga tyrannorum[41] — the 'four-horse chariot of usurpers' said to have aspired to the purple in the reign of Probus — the History itself accuses Marius Maximus of being a producer of 'mythical history': homo omnium verbosissimus, qui et mythistoricis se voluminibis implicavit ('the most long-winded of men, who furthermore wrapped himself up in volumes of historical fiction'). The term mythistoricis occurs nowhere else in Latin.[42] Of considerable significance in this regard is the opening section of the life of Aurelian, in which 'Flavius Vopiscus' records a supposed conversation he had with the City Prefect of Rome during the festival of Hilaria in which the Prefect urges him to write as he chooses and invent what he does not know.[43]

Other examples of the work as a parody can be taken from the names of the Scriptores themselves. It has been argued that "Trebellius Pollio" and "Flavius Vopiscus Syracusius" were invented, with their origins based on passages in Cicero's letters and speeches in the 1st century BC.[38] With respect to "Trebellius Pollio", this is a reference to Lucius Trebellius, a supporter of Mark Antony who was mentioned in the Philippics (Phil, 11.14), and another reference to him in Epistulae ad Familiares along with the term "Pollentiam" reminded the HA author of Asinius Pollio, who was a fellow Plebeian Tribune alongside Lucius Trebellius and a historian as well.[38] This is reinforced by noted similarities between the fictitious criticism of "Trebellius Pollio" by "Flavius Vopiscus" at the start of the Aurelian, with similar comments made by Asinius Pollio about Julius Caesar's published Commentaries.[38] Significantly, Lucius Trebellius adopted the Cognomen Fides for his actions as Plebeian Tribune in 47 BC to resist laws that would abolish debts; later when he fell into debt himself and began supporting debt abolishment, Cicero used his cognomen as a method of abuse and ridicule. It is no coincidence that, in choosing the name "Trebellius Pollio", the author is playing with the notions of fides and fidelitas historica at the exact point in the lives that are assigned to "Trebellius Pollio" and "Flavius Vopiscus Syracusius".[44]

In the case of "Flavius Vopiscus Syracusius", it was argued that it too was inspired by the Philippics' reference to "Caesar Vopiscus" (Phil, 11.11), with Cicero’s reference to Vopiscus immediately preceding his reference to Lucius Trebellius.[45] The cognomen "Syracusius" was selected because Cicero's In Verrem is filled with references to "Syracusae" and "Syracusani".[45] Further, in Cicero's De Oratore, Cicero refers to Strabo Vopiscus as an authority on humour, during which he refers to the reputation of Sicilians when it came to humour, and Syracuse was one of the principal cities of Sicily.[45] Such references were intended as a "knowing wink" to the readers of the HA, who would recognise the mockery of the historical material by the author.[45] This corresponds with David Rohrbacher's view of the HA, who maintains that the author has no political or theological agenda; rather that the HA is the equivalent of a literary puzzle or game, with the reader's understanding and enjoyment of the numerous elaborate and complicated allusions contained within it being the only purpose behind its existence.[46]

Rohrbacher povides an example with respect to Ammianus Marcellinus's work. In one passage (Amm. 19.12.14), Ammianus describes the emperor Constantius II's attempts to prosecute cases of magic under treason laws, in particular the death penalty applied to those men who were condemned simply for wearing an amulet to ward off diseases: "si qui remedia quartanae vel doloris alterius collo gestaret" ("For if anyone wore on his neck an amulet against the quartan ague or any other complaint").[47] There is a very similar imperial ruling described in the Caracalla (5.7), which makes no sense in Caracalla's time, and is worded in almost exactly the same way: "qui remedia quartanis tertianisque collo adnexas gestarent" ("wearing them around their necks as preventives of quartan or tertian fever").[47]

Other suggestions include André Chastagnol's minimalist opinion that the author was a pagan who supported the Senate and the Roman aristocracy and scorned the lower classes and the barbarian races,[48] while François Paschoud proposed that the last books of the HA are in fact a type of alternative historical narrative, with events and the personalities of recent 4th century emperors woven into the fabric of a series of 3rd century emperors. According to Paschoud, the representation of the emperor Probus is in fact a version of Julian, with Carus substituting for Valentinian I and Carinus for Gratian.[48]

False documents and authorities

A peculiarity of the work is its inclusion of a large number of purportedly authentic documents such as extracts from Senate proceedings and letters written by imperial personages.[49][50] In all it contains around 150 alleged documents, including 68 letters, 60 speeches and proposals to the people or the senate, and 20 senatorial decrees and acclamations.[1] Records like these are quite distinct from the rhetorical speeches often inserted by ancient historians – it was accepted practice for the writer to invent these himself[51] – and on the few occasions when historians (such as Sallust in his work on Catiline or Suetonius in his Twelve Caesars) include such documents, they have generally been regarded as genuine;[52] but almost all those found in the Historia Augusta have been rejected as fabrications, partly on stylistic grounds, partly because they refer to military titles or points of administrative organisation which are otherwise unrecorded until long after the purported date, or for other suspicious content.[53][54][55]

The History moreover cites dozens of otherwise unrecorded historians, biographers, letter-writers, knowledgeable friends of the writers, and so on, most of whom must be regarded as figments of the author's fertile and fraudulent imagination.[56] For example, the biographer "Cordus" is cited twenty-seven times in the HA. Long considered to be a real, but lost, biographer until midway into the 20th century,[57][58] with a couple of minor exceptions where material claimed to be sourced from Cordus is in reality from Suetonius or Cicero, every other citation is fake, providing details which have been invented and ascribed to Cordus. Cordus is mentioned almost exclusively in those Vitae where the HA used Herodian as the primary source, and his appearances vanish once Herodian's history comes to an end.[59]

The author would also misattribute material taken from a legitimate historian and ascribe it to a fictitious author. For instance, Herodian is used more often that he is explicitly referenced in the HA; three times his material is cited as "Arrianus", and ten times he is referenced as "Herodianus", probably to multiply the author's sources. Further, the author often distorts Herodian, to suit his literary objective.[17]

Then there is the deliberate citation of false information which is then ascribed legitimate authors. For instance, at a minimum, five of the HA's sixteen citations of Dexippus are considered to be fake, and Dexippus appears to be mentioned, not as a principal source of information, but rather as a contradictory author to be contrasted against information sourced from Herodian or the Enmannsche Kaisergeschichte. And Quintus Gargilius Martialis, who produced works on horticulture and medicine, is cited twice as a biographer, which is considered to be another false attribution.[60]

Examples of falsehood

The untrustworthiness of the HA stems from the multifarious kinds of fraudulent (as opposed to simply inaccurate) information that run through the work, becoming ever more dominant as it proceeds.[27] The various biographies are ascribed to different invented 'authors', and continue with the dedicatory epistles to Diocletian and Constantine, the quotation of fabricated documents, the citation of non-existent authorities, the invention of persons (extending even to the subjects of some of the minor biographies), presentation of contradictory information to confuse an issue while making a show of objectivity, deliberately false statements, and the inclusion of material which can be shown to relate to events or personages of the late 4th century rather than the period supposedly being written about.[61] For example:

Trebellianus, one of the fictitious tyrants included in the Historia Augusta, drawn by Guillaume Rouillé in Promptuarii Iconum Insigniorum- 1553

Marius Maximus or 'Ignotus'?

Certain scholars have always defended the value of specific parts of the work. Anthony Birley has argued, for instance, that the lives up to Septimius Severus are based on the now-lost biographies of Marius Maximus, which were written as a sequel to Suetonius' Lives of the Twelve Caesars.[91] As a result, his translation of the History for Penguin Books covers only the first half, and was published as Lives of the Later Caesars, Birley himself supplying biographies of Nerva and Trajan (these are not part of the original texts, which begin with Hadrian).

His view (part of a tradition that goes back to J. J. Müller, who advanced Marius's claims as early as 1870, and supported by modern scholars such as André Chastagnol) was vigorously contested by Ronald Syme, who held that virtually all the identifiable citations from Marius Maximus are essentially frivolous interpolations into the main narrative source, which he postulated was a different Latin author whom he styled 'Ignotus ("the unknown one"), the good biographer'.[92][93] He argued, firstly, that as Marius wrote a sequel the Lives of the Twelve Caesars, his work covered the reigns from Nerva to Elagabalus; consequently, this would not have included a biography of Lucius Verus, even though the biography of that Princeps in the History is mainly of good quality.[94] Secondly, that 'Ignotus' only went up to Caracalla, as is revealed by the inferior and mostly fictitious biography of Macrinus.[95] Finally, that the composer of the Historia Augusta wrote the lives of the emperors through to the Caracalla (including Lucius Verus) using Ignotus as his main source, and supplementing with Marius Maximus on occasion.[96] It was only when that source failed he turned to other inferior sources (such as Herodian and Maximus),[97] as well as his own fertile imagination, and it was at this juncture that he composed the first five minor lives, through to the Geta.[98]

A similar view to Syme's has been put forward by François Paschoud, who claimed that Maximus was probably a satirical poet, in the same vein as Juvenal and not an imperial biographer at all.[99] His argument rests on the point that, outside of the mentions in the HA, the only extant referencing of Marius's work is always in the context of Juvenal, and that the HA's description of him as a historian cannot be taken at face value, given how it invents or distorts so many other citations.[60] This view is rejected by historians such as Anthony Birley[99] and David Rohrbacher.[100]

Historical value

Ever since it was first published the Historia Augusta has been known not to be particularly reliable, and modern scholars have tended to treat it ..."with extreme circumspection and caution".[11] According to David Magie:

The literary, as well as the historical, value of the Historia Augusta has suffered greatly as a result of the method of its composition. In the arrangement in categories of the historical material, the authors did but follow the accepted principles of the art of biography as practised in antiquity, but their narratives, consisting often of mere excerpts arranged without regard to connexion or transition, lack grace and even cohesion. The over-emphasis of personal details and the introduction of anecdotal material destroy the proportion of many sections, and the insertion of forged documents interrupts the course of the narrative, without adding anything of historical value or even of general interest. Finally, the later addition of lengthy passages and brief notes, frequently in paragraphs with the general content of which they have no connexion, has put the crowning touch to the awkwardness and incoherence of the whole, with the result that the oft-repeated charge seems almost justified, that these biographies are little more than literary monstrosities.[101]

Older historians, such as Edward Gibbon, not fully aware of its problems, generally treated the information preserved within it as authentic. For instance, in Gibbon's account of the reign of Gallienus, he uncritically reproduces the Historia Augusta's biased and largely fictional account of that reign.[102] So when Gibbon states "The repeated intelligence of invasions, defeats, and rebellions, he received with a careless smile; and singling out, with affected contempt, some particular production of the lost province, he carelessly asked, whether Rome must be ruined, unless it was supplied with linen from Egypt, and arras cloth from Gaul",[103] he is reworking the passage in the The Two Gallieni:

I am ashamed to relate what Gallienus used often to say at this time, when such things were happening, as though jesting amid the ills of mankind. For when he was told of the revolt of Egypt, he is said to have exclaimed "What! We cannot do without Egyptian linen!" and when informed that Asia had been devastated both by the violence of nature and by the inroads of the Scythians, he said, "What! We cannot do without saltpetre!" and when Gaul was lost, he is reported to have laughed and remarked, "Can the commonwealth be safe without Atrebatic cloaks?" Thus, in short, with regard to all parts of the world, as he lost them, he would jest, as though seeming to have suffered the loss of some article of trifling service.[104]

Gibbon then noted after this passage: "This singular character has, I believe, been fairly transmitted to us. The reign of his immediate successor was short and busy; and the historians who wrote before the elevation of the family of Constantine could not have the most remote interest to misrepresent the character of Gallienus."[105] Modern scholars now believe that Gallienus's reputation was posthumously maligned, that he was one of the main architects of the later Roman imperial structure, and that his reforms were built upon by succeeding emperors.[106]

Nevertheless, it is unwise to dismiss it altogether as it is also the principal Latin source regarding a century of Roman history. For example, scholars had assumed that Veturius Macrinus mentioned in the Life of Didius Julianus was an invention of the author, like so many other names. However, an inscription was uncovered which confirmed his existence and his post as Praetorian Prefect in 193.[107] Likewise, the information that Hadrian's Wall was constructed during Hadrian's reign[108] and that the Antonine Wall was built during the reign of Antoninus Pius[109] are recorded by no other extant ancient writer apart from the Historia Augusta.[110]

Criticism of the current mainstream view

Not all scholars have accepted the theory of a forger working around the last decades of the 4th century or the beginning of the 5th. Arnaldo Momigliano[111][112][113] and A.H.M. Jones[114] were the most prominent 20th century critics of the Dessau-Syme theory amongst English-speaking scholars. Momigliano, summarizing the literature from Dessau down to 1954, defined the question as "res iudicanda" (i.e. "a matter to be decided") and not as "res iudicata" ("a matter that has been decided"). Momigliano reviewed every book published on the topic by Sir Ronald Syme, and provided counter arguments to most if not all of Syme’s arguments.[112][113] For instance, the reference in the Probus about the emperor's descendants which has been taken to refer to Sextus Claudius Petronius Probus and his family may, in the opinion of Momigliano, equally refer to the earlier members of the family, which was prominent throughout the 4th century, such as Petronius Probinus (consul in 341) and Petronius Probianus (consul in 322).[115]

Momigliano's opinion was that there was insufficient evidence to dismiss a composition date of the early 4th century, and that any post-Constantinian anachronisms could be explained by an editor working on the material at a later date, perhaps during the reigns of Constantius II or Julian.[116]

Other opinions included Dr H Stern's, who postulated that the HA was composed by a team of writers during the reign of Constantius II after the defeat of Magnentius on behalf of the Senatorial aristocracy who had supported the usurper.[117] In the 21st century, Alan Cameron rebutted a number of Syme's and Barnes's arguments for a composition date c.395-400, suggesting a composition date between 361 and the 380s.[118]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Gerardus Vossius, who published de Historicis Romanis in 1627, discussed the problem of the distribution of the various vitae among the scriptores, but also to the authors cited by them. Louis-Sébastien Le Nain de Tillemont, who published Histoire des Empereurs et des autres Princes qui ont régné durant les six premiers Siècles de l'Eglise in 1690, provided a wholesale denunciation of the biographies as being worthless, full of contradictions and chronological errors.
  2. ↑ Sev. 17.5-19.4 was copied from from Victor, Caes. 20.1 and 10-30; in both passages there is a major error, which mixes up the emperor Didius Julianus with the legal scholar Salvius Julianus
  3. ↑ MA 16.3-18.2 was lifted from Eutropius 8.11

References

  1. 1 2 Magie 1921, pp. xx-xxi.
  2. ↑ Breisach 2007, p. 75.
  3. 1 2 Magie 1921, p. xi.
  4. ↑ Birley 1988, p. 20.
  5. ↑ Magie 1921, pp. xxiv-xxv.
  6. 1 2 Birley 1988, p. 9.
  7. ↑ Birley 1967, pp. 125-130.
  8. ↑ Syme 1983, pp. 118-119.
  9. ↑ Syme 1971, p. 277.
  10. ↑ Barnes 1978, p. 12.
  11. 1 2 Browning 1983, pp. 43,45.
  12. ↑ Birley 1988, p. 7.
  13. ↑ Magie 1921, pp. xxx-xxxi.
  14. ↑ Birley 1988, p. 11.
  15. ↑ Magie 1921, p. xxxii.
  16. ↑ Syme 1971, p. 1.
  17. 1 2 Birley 2006, p. 20.
  18. ↑ Syme 1971, p. 2.
  19. ↑ Momigliano 1984, p. 113.
  20. ↑ Hornblower, Spawforth & Eidinow 2012, p. 691.
  21. ↑ Birley 2006, p. 19.
  22. ↑ Syme 1983, pp. 13-14.
  23. 1 2 Rohrbacher 2016, p. 20.
  24. ↑ Prickman 2013, book-01-ninthcentury.php.
  25. ↑ Syme 1971, pp. 54-57.
  26. ↑ Syme 1971, pp. 56-57.
  27. 1 2 Birley 1988, pp. 13-14.
  28. ↑ Syme 1983, pp. 44, 211, 214.
  29. ↑ Syme 1971, pp. 57-59.
  30. ↑ Syme 1971, pp. 146-150.
  31. ↑ Birley 1988, p. 14.
  32. 1 2 Rohrbacher 2013, p. 151.
  33. ↑ Rohrbacher 2013, pp. 150-151.
  34. ↑ Birley 2006, p. 23.
  35. ↑ Birley 2006, p. 22.
  36. ↑ Magie & Historia Augusta 1921, Alexander Severus, 13.5.
  37. ↑ Magie & Historia Augusta 1921, Alexander Severus, 14.4.
  38. 1 2 3 4 Birley 2006, p. 25.
  39. ↑ Syme 1983, pp. 12-13.
  40. ↑ Syme 1983, p. 214.
  41. ↑ Magie & Historia Augusta 1921, The Lives of the Thirty Pretenders, 1.2.
  42. ↑ Syme 1971, p. 76.
  43. ↑ Syme 1968, p. 192.
  44. ↑ Birley 2006, p. 26.
  45. 1 2 3 4 Birley 2006, p. 27.
  46. ↑ Rohrbacher 2013, p. 148.
  47. 1 2 Rohrbacher 2016, p. 143.
  48. 1 2 Rohrbacher 2013, p. 147.
  49. ↑ Potter 2005, p. 150.
  50. ↑ Campbell 1994, p. 248.
  51. ↑ Mehl 2011, p. 21.
  52. ↑ Potter 2005, p. 149.
  53. ↑ Hadas 2013, pp. 356-357.
  54. ↑ Rohrbacher 2016, pp. 6-8.
  55. ↑ Syme 1983, pp. 113-114.
  56. ↑ Syme 1983, pp. 98-99.
  57. ↑ Magie 1921, pp. xviii-xix.
  58. ↑ Syme 1968, pp. 96-98.
  59. ↑ Rohrbacher 2013, p. 161.
  60. 1 2 Rohrbacher 2013, p. 160.
  61. ↑ Birley 1988, pp. 12-16.
  62. ↑ Magie & Historia Augusta 1921, Geta, 3.1.
  63. ↑ Syme 1968, p. 123.
  64. ↑ Birley 1966, pp. 249-253.
  65. ↑ Raschke 1976, pp. 761-762.
  66. ↑ Habelt 1968, p. 121.
  67. ↑ Birley 2013, p. 3.
  68. ↑ Syme 1968, p. 60.
  69. ↑ Syme 1971, pp. 21-24.
  70. ↑ Magie & Historia Augusta 1921, The Two Valerians, 5.4-6.1.
  71. ↑ Syme 1971, p. 215.
  72. ↑ Syme 1971, p. 216.
  73. ↑ Den Hengst 2010, p. 97.
  74. ↑ Magie & Historia Augusta 1921, The Lives of the Thirty Pretenders, 1.1.
  75. ↑ Bunson 1991, p. 414.
  76. ↑ Cancik, Schneider & Salazar 2009, p. 91.
  77. ↑ Den Hengst 2010, p. 159.
  78. ↑ Kreucher 2003, p. 105.
  79. ↑ Syme 1971, pp. 4, 12.
  80. ↑ Syme 1983, p. 117.
  81. ↑ Baldwin 1984, p. 4.
  82. ↑ Syme 1971, pp. 238-239.
  83. ↑ Magie & Historia Augusta 1921, The Lives of the Thirty Pretenders, 3.1.
  84. ↑ Magie & Historia Augusta 1921, Aurelian, 32.2.
  85. ↑ Barnes 1978, p. 71.
  86. ↑ Den Boeft et al. 2013, pp. 150.
  87. ↑ Magie & Historia Augusta 1921, The Lives of the Thirty Pretenders, 3.2-6.5.
  88. ↑ Magie & Historia Augusta 1921, The Lives of the Thirty Pretenders, 24.1-24.3.
  89. ↑ Platnauer & Claudian 1922, Panegyric on the Consuls Probinus and Olybrius, Note 1.
  90. ↑ Jones, Martindale & Morris 1971, pp. 739.
  91. ↑ Birley 1988, pp. 14-15.
  92. ↑ Syme 1983, p. 33.
  93. ↑ Birley 1988, p. 15.
  94. ↑ Syme 1983, pp. 31-33.
  95. ↑ Syme 1983, p. 32.
  96. ↑ Syme 1983, pp. 32-33.
  97. ↑ Syme 1983, pp. 31-32.
  98. ↑ Syme 1983, p. 44.
  99. 1 2 Birley 2006, p. 21.
  100. ↑ Rohrbacher 2013, pp. 161-162.
  101. ↑ Magie 1921, pp. xxiii-xxiv.
  102. ↑ Bray 1997, pp. 3-4.
  103. ↑ Gibbon 1776, Ch. 10.
  104. ↑ Magie & Historia Augusta 1921, The Two Gallieni, 6.1-6.8.
  105. ↑ Gibbon 1776, Ch. 10, Note 156.
  106. ↑ Bray 1997, p. 4.
  107. ↑ Mellor 2002, p. 163.
  108. ↑ Magie & Historia Augusta 1921, Hadrian, 11.2.
  109. ↑ Magie & Historia Augusta 1921, Antoninus Pius, 5.4.
  110. ↑ Birley 1988, p. 13.
  111. ↑ Momigliano 1954, pp. 22-46.
  112. 1 2 Momigliano 1969, pp. 566-569.
  113. 1 2 Momigliano 1973, pp. 114-115.
  114. ↑ Jones 1986, p. 1071, Note 1.
  115. ↑ Momigliano 1984, p. 121.
  116. ↑ Momigliano 1984, pp. 125, 133.
  117. ↑ Momigliano 1984, p. 140.
  118. ↑ Cameron 2011, pp. 743-746.

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