Historia Augusta

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"Despite a century of intensive scholarly interest, the nature and purpose of the Historia Augusta remain elusive. It is, however, an essential text for historians of the ancient world because it i...

"Despite a century of intensive scholarly interest, the nature and purpose of the Historia Augusta remain elusive. It is, however, an essential text for historians of the ancient world because it is the most detailed Latin source for the second and third centuries AD, and it often provides details beyond what we find in the Greek sources. In addition, it offers pleasure for the casual reader from its gossipy recounting of the passions, follies, and scandals of decadent emperors, and the noble and admirable deeds of the good ones. The work comes to us as a collection of thirty books which cover the lives of the Roman emperors from Hadrian (ruled 117-138) to Carinus (283-285). The lives roughly follow the model of the imperial biographer Suetonius. They offer not only a historical narrative of the important deeds of the subject's life, but also evidence of the emperor's character as revealed through habits or anecdotes. The author follows other imperial biographers like Plutarch in differentiating biography from history. Biography is traditionally more concerned with facts and accuracy, and less concerned with style and elegance." --

"The 'Historia Augusta' is a biographical work roughly following the model of the imperial biographer Suetonius (LCL 31, 38) and covering the lives of the Roman emperors from Hadrian (r. 117-138) to Carinus (r. 283-285), with a lacuna between the lives of the Gordians and the Valerians. Although the work comes down to us as a collection of thirty books written by six different authors, it is now generally considered to be the creation of a single individual writing under several pseudonyms no earlier than the late fourth century. It is a thoroughly enigmatic work whose origins, nature, and purpose remain obscure; the very beginning of the life of Hadrian is lost, and with it any general introduction that may have existed. While the 'Historia Augusta' is our most detailed surviving source for the second and third centuries, often providing details beyond the Greek accounts, it is not a trustworthy source for historical information: too many of the details are anachronistic, unsupported, or preposterous, or contradicted internally or by better sources, and many documents, speeches, acclamations, and inscriptions that it quotes or cites are entirely fictional. The 'Historia Augusta' nevertheless has its attractions: for the connoisseur of biography the author provides plenty of wordplay, puns, allusions, literary games, and mock-scholarly digressions, and for the casual reader he offers vivid characterizations of emperors both good and bad."--

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