Augustan History
Encyclopedia
The Augustan History (Lat.
Historia Augusta) is a late Roman collection of biographies, in Latin, of the Roman Emperor
s, their junior colleagues and usurpers
of the period 117 to 284. It presents itself as a compilation of works by six different authors (collectively known as the Scriptores Historiae Augustae), written in the reigns of Diocletian
and Constantine I
, but the true authorship of the work, its actual date, and its purpose, have long been matters for controversy. Major problems include the nature of the sources it used, and how much of the content is pure fiction. Despite these conundrums - all of which are of considerable interest - it is the only continuous account 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.
, who produced a critical edition in 1603, working from a complex manuscript
tradition with a number of variant versions. How widely the work was circulated in late antiquity is unknown, but lengthy citations from it are found in authors of the sixth and ninth centuries AD, and the chief manuscripts also date from the ninth or tenth centuries. (The editio princeps
was published at 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 third and early fourth century. 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, and it has been argued that biographies of Nerva
and Trajan
have also been lost at the beginning of the work, which may suggest the compilation might have been a direct continuation of Suetonius
. (It has also 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.) Despite devoting whole books to ephemeral or in some cases non-existent usurpers, 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 – in the first volume of Edward Gibbon
's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, for example. 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.
, who had become increasingly concerned by the huge amount of anachronistic terms, Vulgar Latin
vocabulary, and especially the host of obviously bogus proper names in the work, proposed that the six authors were all fictitious persona
e, and that the work was in fact composed by a single author in the late fourth century, probably in the reign of Theodosius I
. Among his supporting evidence was that the life of Septimius Severus
would have appear to make use of a passage from the mid-4th century historian Aurelius Victor
, and that the life of Marcus Aurelius likewise uses material from Eutropius. In the decades following Dessau many scholars fought rearguard actions to try to preserve at least some of the six Scriptores as distinct persons and some 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. 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 70s 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 395 AD. Other recent studies also show much consistency of style, and most scholars now accept the theory of a single late author of unknown identity. 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 because portions of the work are obviously compiled from multiple sources is unclear.
'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) The 'secondary' lives allowed the author to exercise free invention untrammelled by mere facts, 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. The biography of Macrinus
is notoriously unreliable, 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
. 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
– but the biographies are increasingly tracts of invention in which occasional nuggets of fact are embedded.
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. Syme 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) 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 makes the Emperor Tacitus
(275-276) a descendant and connoisseur of the historian.) In fact in a passage on the Quadriga tyrannorum - 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. 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.
in his work on Catiline
or Suetonius in his Twelve Caesars) include such documents, they have generally been regarded as genuine; 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. 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.
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
. 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) was vigorously contested by Syme, who held that virtually all the identifiable citations from Marius Maximus are more or less frivolous interpolations into the main narrative source, which he postulated was a different author whom he styled 'Ignotus ("the unknown one"), the good biographer'. He argued that as far as is known Marius did not write a biography of Lucius Verus, even though the biography of that prince in the History is mainly of good quality, and that 'Ignotus' only went up to Caracalla, as is revealed by the lamentable biography of Macrinus.
Inextricably entangled in its fictions and jokes, however – and especially in the earlier biographies – is a wealth of genuine historical information of which it is often the sole transmitter. For example, it is the sole ancient authority for the construction of the Antonine Wall
in Scotland
during the reign of Antoninus Pius
.
and A.H.M. Jones were the most prominent critics of the Dessau-Syme theory amongst English-speaking scholars during the 20th century. Momigliano, summarizing literature from Dessau down to 1954, defined the question as “res iudicanda” and not as “res iudicata”. Momigliano reviewed every book published on the topic by Sir Ronald Syme, and was able to provide counter arguments to most if not all of Syme’s arguments.
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
Historia Augusta) is a late Roman collection of biographies, in Latin, of the Roman Emperor
Roman Emperor
The Roman emperor was the ruler of the Roman State during the imperial period . The Romans had no single term for the office although at any given time, a given title was associated with the emperor...
s, their junior colleagues and usurpers
Roman usurper
Usurpers are individuals or groups of individuals who obtain and maintain the power or rights of another by force and without legal authority. Usurpation was endemic during roman imperial era, especially from the crisis of the third century onwards, when political instability became the rule.The...
of the period 117 to 284. It presents itself as a compilation of works by six different authors (collectively known as the Scriptores Historiae Augustae), written in the reigns of Diocletian
Diocletian
Diocletian |latinized]] upon his accession to Diocletian . c. 22 December 244 – 3 December 311), was a Roman Emperor from 284 to 305....
and Constantine I
Constantine I
Constantine the Great , also known as Constantine I or Saint Constantine, was Roman Emperor from 306 to 337. Well known for being the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, Constantine and co-Emperor Licinius issued the Edict of Milan in 313, which proclaimed religious tolerance of all...
, but the true authorship of the work, its actual date, and its purpose, have long been matters for controversy. Major problems include the nature of the sources it used, and how much of the content is pure fiction. Despite these conundrums - all of which are of considerable interest - it is the only continuous account 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.
Title and scope
The name originated with Isaac CasaubonIsaac Casaubon
Isaac Casaubon was a classical scholar and philologist, first in France and then later in England, regarded by many of his time as the most learned in Europe.-Early life:...
, who produced a critical edition in 1603, working from a complex manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
tradition with a number of variant versions. How widely the work was circulated in late antiquity is unknown, but lengthy citations from it are found in authors of the sixth and ninth centuries AD, and the chief manuscripts also date from the ninth or tenth centuries. (The editio princeps
Editio princeps
In classical scholarship, editio princeps is a term of art. It means, roughly, the first printed edition of a work that previously had existed only in manuscripts, which could be circulated only after being copied by hand....
was published at Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
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 third and early fourth century. The biographies cover the emperors from Hadrian
Hadrian
Hadrian , was Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In Rome, he re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and was philhellene in...
to Carinus
Carinus
Carinus , was Roman Emperor 282 to 285. The elder son of emperor Carus, he was appointed Caesar and co-emperor of the western portion of the empire upon his father's accession...
and Numerian
Numerian
Numerian , was a Roman Emperor from 282 to 284 with his older brother Carinus. They were sons of Carus, a general raised to the office of praetorian prefect under Emperor Probus in 282.-Reign:...
. A section covering the reigns of Philip the Arab
Philip the Arab
Philip the Arab , also known as Philip or Philippus Arabs, was Roman Emperor from 244 to 249. He came from Syria, and rose to become a major figure in the Roman Empire. He achieved power after the death of Gordian III, quickly negotiating peace with the Sassanid Empire...
, Decius
Decius
Trajan Decius , was Roman Emperor from 249 to 251. In the last year of his reign, he co-ruled with his son Herennius Etruscus until they were both killed in the Battle of Abrittus.-Early life and rise to power:...
, Trebonianus Gallus
Trebonianus Gallus
Trebonianus Gallus , also known as Gallus, was Roman Emperor from 251 to 253, in a joint rule with his son Volusianus.-Early life:Gallus was born in Italy, in a family with respected ancestry of Etruscan senatorial background. He had two children in his marriage with Afinia Gemina Baebiana: Gaius...
, Aemilian and all but the end of the reign of Valerian
Valerian (emperor)
Valerian , also known as Valerian the Elder, was Roman Emperor from 253 to 260. He was taken captive by Persian king Shapur I after the Battle of Edessa, becoming the only Roman Emperor who was captured as a prisoner of war, resulting in wide-ranging instability across the Empire.-Origins and rise...
is missing in all the manuscripts, and it has been argued that biographies of Nerva
Nerva
Nerva , was Roman Emperor from 96 to 98. Nerva became Emperor at the age of sixty-five, after a lifetime of imperial service under Nero and the rulers of the Flavian dynasty. Under Nero, he was a member of the imperial entourage and played a vital part in exposing the Pisonian conspiracy of 65...
and Trajan
Trajan
Trajan , was Roman Emperor from 98 to 117 AD. Born into a non-patrician family in the province of Hispania Baetica, in Spain Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a legatus legionis in Hispania Tarraconensis, in Spain, in 89 Trajan supported the emperor against...
have also been lost at the beginning of the work, which may suggest the compilation might have been a direct continuation of Suetonius
Suetonius
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, commonly known as Suetonius , was a Roman historian belonging to the equestrian order in the early Imperial era....
. (It has also 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.) Despite devoting whole books to ephemeral or in some cases non-existent usurpers, there are no independent biographies of the Emperors Quintillus
Quintillus
Quintillus , commonly known as Quintillus, was Roman Emperor for less than a year in 270.-Early Life and Election as Emperor:Quintillus was born at Sirmium in Illyricum. Originally coming from a low born family, Quintillus came to prominence with the accession of his brother Claudius II Gothicus to...
and Florian, whose reigns are merely briefly noted towards the end of the biographies of their respective predecessors, Claudius Gothicus and Tacitus
Marcus Claudius Tacitus
Tacitus , was Roman Emperor from 275 to 276. During his short reign he campaigned against the Goths and the Heruli, for which he received the title Gothicus Maximus.-Biography:Tacitus was born in Interamna , in Italia...
. 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 – in the first volume of Edward Gibbon
Edward Gibbon
Edward Gibbon was an English historian and Member of Parliament...
's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, for example. 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 dating problem
In 1889, Hermann DessauHermann Dessau
Hermann Dessau was a German ancient historian and epigrapher. He is noted for a key work of textual criticism published in 1889 on the Historia Augusta, which uncovered reasons to believe that this surviving text of ancient Roman imperial history had been written under circumstances very...
, who had become increasingly concerned by the huge amount of anachronistic terms, Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin is any of the nonstandard forms of Latin from which the Romance languages developed. Because of its nonstandard nature, it had no official orthography. All written works used Classical Latin, with very few exceptions...
vocabulary, and especially the host of obviously bogus proper names in the work, proposed that the six authors were all fictitious persona
Persona
A persona, in the word's everyday usage, is a social role or a character played by an actor. The word is derived from Latin, where it originally referred to a theatrical mask. The Latin word probably derived from the Etruscan word "phersu", with the same meaning, and that from the Greek πρόσωπον...
e, and that the work was in fact composed by a single author in the late fourth century, probably in the reign of Theodosius I
Theodosius I
Theodosius I , also known as Theodosius the Great, was Roman Emperor from 379 to 395. Theodosius was the last emperor to rule over both the eastern and the western halves of the Roman Empire. During his reign, the Goths secured control of Illyricum after the Gothic War, establishing their homeland...
. Among his supporting evidence was that the life of Septimius Severus
Septimius Severus
Septimius Severus , also known as Severus, was Roman Emperor from 193 to 211. Severus was born in Leptis Magna in the province of Africa. As a young man he advanced through the customary succession of offices under the reigns of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. Severus seized power after the death of...
would have appear to make use of a passage from the mid-4th century historian Aurelius Victor
Aurelius Victor
Sextus Aurelius Victor was a historian and politician of the Roman Empire.Aurelius Victor was the author of a History of Rome from Augustus to Julian , published ca. 361. Julian honoured him and appointed him prefect of Pannonia Secunda...
, and that the life of Marcus Aurelius likewise uses material from Eutropius. In the decades following Dessau many scholars fought rearguard actions to try to preserve at least some of the six Scriptores as distinct persons and some first-hand authenticity for the content. As early as 1890 Mommsen
Mommsen
Mommsen is a surname, and may refer to one of a family of German historians, see Mommsen family:* Theodor Mommsen , great classical scholar, and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature* Tycho Mommsen...
postulated a Theodosian 'editor' of the Scriptores' work, an idea that has resurfaced many times since. Others, such as Norman H. Baynes
Norman H. Baynes
Professor Norman Hepburn Baynes was a noted 20th century British historian of the Byzantine Empire.-Career:Baynes was Professor of Byzantine History at University College London from 1931 until 1942...
, abandoned the early 4th century date but only advanced it as far as the reign of Julian the Apostate
Julian the Apostate
Julian "the Apostate" , commonly known as Julian, or also Julian the Philosopher, was Roman Emperor from 361 to 363 and a noted philosopher and Greek writer....
(useful for arguing the work was intended as pagan
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
propaganda). In the 1960s and 70s however Dessau's original arguments received powerful restatement and expansion from Sir Ronald Syme
Ronald Syme
Sir Ronald Syme, OM, FBA was a New Zealand-born historian and classicist. Long associated with Oxford University, he is widely regarded as the 20th century's greatest historian of ancient Rome...
, who devoted three books to the subject and was prepared to date the writing of the work closely in the region of 395 AD. Other recent studies also show much consistency of style, and most scholars now accept the theory of a single late author of unknown identity. Computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
-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 because portions of the work are obviously compiled from multiple sources is unclear.
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. Thus among the biographies of 2nd-century and early 3rd-century figures are included HadrianHadrian
Hadrian , was Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In Rome, he re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and was philhellene in...
's heir Aelius Caesar
Lucius Aelius
Lucius Aelius Caesar became the adopted son and intended successor, of Roman Emperor Hadrian , but never attained the throne....
, and the usurpers Avidius Cassius
Avidius Cassius
Gaius Avidius Cassius was a Roman general and usurper who briefly ruled Egypt and Syria in 175.-Origins:He was the son of Gaius Avidius Heliodorus, a noted orator who was Prefect of Egypt from 137 to 142 under Hadrian, and wife Junia Cassia Alexandra...
, Pescennius Niger
Pescennius Niger
Pescennius Niger was a Roman usurper from 193 to 194 during the Year of the Five Emperors. He claimed the imperial throne in response to the murder of Pertinax and the elevation of Didius Julianus, but was defeated by a rival claimant, Septimius Severus and killed while attempting to flee from...
and Clodius Albinus
Clodius Albinus
Clodius Albinus was a Roman usurper proclaimed emperor by the legions in Britain and Hispania upon the murder of Pertinax in 193.-Life:...
, Caracalla's brother Geta
Publius Septimius Geta
Geta , was a Roman Emperor co-ruling with his father Septimius Severus and his older brother Caracalla from 209 to his death.-Early life:Geta was the younger son of Septimius Severus by his second wife Julia Domna...
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
Lucius Verus
Lucius Verus , was Roman co-emperor with Marcus Aurelius, from 161 until his death.-Early life and career:Lucius Verus was the first born son to Avidia Plautia and Lucius Aelius Verus Caesar, the first adopted son and heir of Roman Emperor Hadrian . He was born and raised in Rome...
, which Mommsen thought 'secondary', is however rich in apparently reliable information and has been vindicated by Syme as belonging to the 'primary' series) The 'secondary' lives allowed the author to exercise free invention untrammelled by mere facts, 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'
Thirty Tyrants (Roman)
The Thirty Tyrants were a series of thirty rulers that appear in the Historia Augusta as having ostensibly been pretenders to the throne of the Roman Empire during the reign of the emperor Gallienus....
said to have risen as usurpers under Gallienus
Gallienus
Gallienus was Roman Emperor with his father Valerian from 253 to 260, and alone from 260 to 268. He took control of the Empire at a time when it was undergoing great crisis...
.
Moreover, after the biography of Caracalla
Caracalla
Caracalla , was Roman emperor from 198 to 217. The eldest son of Septimius Severus, he ruled jointly with his younger brother Geta until he murdered the latter in 211...
the 'primary' biographies, of the emperors themselves, begin to assume the rhetorical and fictive qualities previously confined to the 'secondary' ones. The biography of Macrinus
Macrinus
Macrinus , was Roman Emperor from 217 to 218. Macrinus was of "Moorish" descent and the first emperor to become so without membership in the senatorial class.-Background and career:...
is notoriously unreliable, and after a partial reversion to reliability in the Elagabalus
Elagabalus
Elagabalus , also known as Heliogabalus, was Roman Emperor from 218 to 222. A member of the Severan Dynasty, he was Syrian on his mother's side, the son of Julia Soaemias and Sextus Varius Marcellus. Early in his youth he served as a priest of the god El-Gabal at his hometown, Emesa...
, the life of Alexander Severus
Alexander Severus
Severus Alexander was Roman Emperor from 222 to 235. Alexander was the last emperor of the Severan dynasty. He succeeded his cousin Elagabalus upon the latter's assassination in 222, and was ultimately assassinated himself, marking the epoch event for the Crisis of the Third Century — nearly fifty...
, 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
Philosopher king
Philosopher kings are the rulers, or Guardians, of Plato's Utopian Kallipolis. If his ideal city-state is to ever come into being, "philosophers [must] become kings…or those now called kings [must]…genuinely and adequately philosophize" .-In Book VI of The Republic:Plato defined a philosopher...
. 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
Herodian
Herodian or Herodianus of Syria was a minor Roman civil servant who wrote a colourful history in Greek titled History of the Empire from the Death of Marcus in eight books covering the years 180 to 238. His work is not entirely reliable although his relatively unbiased account of Elagabalus is...
up to 238, and probably Dexippus
Dexippus
Publius Herennius Dexippus , Greek historian, statesman and general, was an hereditary priest of the Eleusinian family of the Kerykes, and held the offices of archon basileus and eponymous in Athens....
in the later books, for the entire imperial period the Enmannsche Kaisergeschichte
Enmannsche Kaisergeschichte
The Enmannsche Kaisergeschichte is a modern term for a hypothesized Latin historical work, written in the 4th century but now lost....
– but the biographies are increasingly tracts of invention in which occasional nuggets of fact are embedded.
Genre and purpose
Interpretations of the purpose of the History also vary considerably, some considering it a work of fiction or satireSatire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
intended to entertain (perhaps in the vein of 1066 and All That
1066 and All That
1066 and All That: A Memorable History of England, comprising all the parts you can remember, including 103 Good Things, 5 Bad Kings and 2 Genuine Dates is a tongue-in-cheek reworking of the history of England. Written by W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman and illustrated by John Reynolds, it first...
), others viewing it as a pagan
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
attack on Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, the writer having concealed his identity for personal safety. Syme 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) the antiquarian tendencies of the Theodosian age, in which Suetonius and Marius Maximus
Marius Maximus
Marius Maximus was a Roman biographer, writing in Latin, who in the early decades of the 3rd century AD wrote a series of biographies of twelve Emperors, imitating and continuing Suetonius. Marius’s work is lost, but it was still being read in the late 4th century and was used as a source by...
were fashionable reading and Ammianus Marcellinus
Ammianus Marcellinus
Ammianus Marcellinus was a fourth-century Roman historian. He wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from Antiquity...
was producing sober history in the manner of Tacitus
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...
. (The History implausibly makes the Emperor Tacitus
Marcus Claudius Tacitus
Tacitus , was Roman Emperor from 275 to 276. During his short reign he campaigned against the Goths and the Heruli, for which he received the title Gothicus Maximus.-Biography:Tacitus was born in Interamna , in Italia...
(275-276) a descendant and connoisseur of the historian.) In fact in a passage on the Quadriga tyrannorum - 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. Of considerable significance in this regard is the opening section of the life of Aurelian
Aurelian
Aurelian , was Roman Emperor from 270 to 275. During his reign, he defeated the Alamanni after a devastating war. He also defeated the Goths, Vandals, Juthungi, Sarmatians, and Carpi. Aurelian restored the Empire's eastern provinces after his conquest of the Palmyrene Empire in 273. The following...
, in which 'Flavius Vopiscus' records a supposed conversation he had with the City Prefect
Praefectus urbi
The praefectus urbanus or praefectus urbi, in English the urban prefect, was prefect of the city of Rome, and later also of Constantinople. The office originated under the Roman kings, continued during the Republic and Empire, and held high importance in late Antiquity...
of Rome during the festival of Hilaria
Hilaria
For the saint of this name, see Saints Chrysanthus and Daria.In Ancient Roman religious tradition, the hilaria were festivals celebrated on the vernal equinox to honor Cybele....
in which the Prefect urges him to write as he chooses and invent what he does not know.
Bogus 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. 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 – and on the few occasions when historians (such as SallustSallust
Gaius Sallustius Crispus, generally known simply as Sallust , a Roman historian, belonged to a well-known plebeian family, and was born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines...
in his work on Catiline
Catiline
Lucius Sergius Catilina , known in English as Catiline, was a Roman politician of the 1st century BC who is best known for the Catiline conspiracy, an attempt to overthrow the Roman Republic, and in particular the power of the aristocratic Senate.-Family background:Catiline was born in 108 BC to...
or Suetonius in his Twelve Caesars) include such documents, they have generally been regarded as genuine; 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. 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.
Examples of falsehood: a small selection
As indicated above, the untrustworthiness of the HA stems from the multifarious kinds of fraudulent (as opposed to simply inaccurate) information that run through the whole work, becoming ever more dominant as it proceeds. Species of fraudulence begin with the ascription of the various biographies 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. Specific examples would be endless: the following, both minor and major in effect, are merely typical.- The biography of GetaPublius Septimius GetaGeta , was a Roman Emperor co-ruling with his father Septimius Severus and his older brother Caracalla from 209 to his death.-Early life:Geta was the younger son of Septimius Severus by his second wife Julia Domna...
states he was born at MediolanumMilanMilan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
on 27 May; the year is not specified but it was 'in the suffect consulships of Severus and Vitellius'. He was actually born at Rome on 7 March 189; there was no such pair of suffect consuls in this or any other year.
- A letter of HadrianHadrianHadrian , was Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In Rome, he re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and was philhellene in...
written from Egypt to his brother-in-law ServianusLucius Julius Ursus ServianusLucius Julius Ursus Servianus was a Spanish Roman politician. According to an inscription found, his full name is Gaius Julius Servilius Ursus Servianus, however in Augustan History, he is known as Lucius Julius Ursus Servianus. Little is known on his origins.Servianus was a prominent public...
is quoted at length (and was accepted as genuine by many authorities well into the 20th century). Servianus is saluted as consul, and Hadrian mentions his (adopted) son Lucius Aelius Caesar: but Hadrian was in Egypt in 130130Year 130 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Catullinus and Aper...
, Servianus's consulship fell in 134134Year 134 was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Ursus and Varus...
, and Hadrian adopted Aelius in 136136Year 136 was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Commodus and Civica...
. The letter is said to have been published by Hadrian's freedman Phlegon (whose existence is mentioned nowhere except in the HA, in another suspect passage). A passage in the letter dealing with the frivolousness of Egyptian religious beliefs refers to the PatriarchNasiNāśī’ is a Hebrew title meaning prince in Biblical Hebrew, Prince in Mishnaic Hebrew, or president in Modern Hebrew.-Genesis and Ancient Israel:...
, head of the Jewish community in the Empire. This office only came into being after Hadrian put down the Jewish revolt of 132132Year 132 was a leap year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Serius and Sergianus...
, and the passage is probably meant in mockery of the powerful late 4th-century Patriarch, GamalielGamalielGamaliel the Elder , or Rabban Gamaliel I , was a leading authority in the Sanhedrin in the mid 1st century CE. He was the grandson of the great Jewish teacher Hillel the Elder, and died twenty years before the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem...
. (See R. Syme, Emperors and Biography, pp. 21–24.) Christian theologian Joseph Barber LightfootJoseph Barber LightfootJoseph Barber Lightfoot was an English theologian and Bishop of Durham, usually known as J.B. Lightfoot....
argued for the authenticity of the letter since it doesn't state it was written in Egypt (132) and that an alternative date for the adoption of Aelius was on or before 134.
- DeciusDeciusTrajan Decius , was Roman Emperor from 249 to 251. In the last year of his reign, he co-ruled with his son Herennius Etruscus until they were both killed in the Battle of Abrittus.-Early life and rise to power:...
revives the office of Censor; the Senate acclaims ValerianValerian (emperor)Valerian , also known as Valerian the Elder, was Roman Emperor from 253 to 260. He was taken captive by Persian king Shapur I after the Battle of Edessa, becoming the only Roman Emperor who was captured as a prisoner of war, resulting in wide-ranging instability across the Empire.-Origins and rise...
as worthy to hold it in a decree dated 27 October 251. The decree is brought to Decius (on campaign against the GothsGothsThe Goths were an East Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin whose two branches, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, played an important role in the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of Medieval Europe....
) and he summons Valerian to bestow the honour. The revival of the censorship is fictitious, and Decius had been dead for several months by the date stated. (Syme, op. cit., p. 215)
- Valerian writes to 'Zosimius', procuratorProcurator (Roman)A procurator was the title of various officials of the Roman Empire, posts mostly filled by equites . A procurator Augusti was the governor of the smaller imperial provinces...
of SyriaSyriaSyria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
(otherwise unknown) instructing him to furnish the young Claudius with military equipment including a pair of aclydes. The aclys (a kind of HomerHomerIn the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
ic javelinJavelinA Javelin is a light spear intended for throwing. It is commonly known from the modern athletic discipline, the Javelin throw.Javelin may also refer to:-Aviation:* ATG Javelin, an American-Israeli civil jet aircraft, under development...
) is a weapon only found in poetry (e.g. VirgilVirgilPublius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
, Aeneid VII.730). (Syme, op. cit., p. 216)
- Valerian holds an imperial council in ByzantiumByzantiumByzantium was an ancient Greek city, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas . The name Byzantium is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion...
, attended by several named dignitaries, none of them otherwise attested and some holding offices not known to exist till the following century, at which the general 'Ulpius Crinitus' (a name apparently chosen to evoke the military glories of the Emperor TrajanTrajanTrajan , was Roman Emperor from 98 to 117 AD. Born into a non-patrician family in the province of Hispania Baetica, in Spain Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a legatus legionis in Hispania Tarraconensis, in Spain, in 89 Trajan supported the emperor against...
) takes the young AurelianAurelianAurelian , was Roman Emperor from 270 to 275. During his reign, he defeated the Alamanni after a devastating war. He also defeated the Goths, Vandals, Juthungi, Sarmatians, and Carpi. Aurelian restored the Empire's eastern provinces after his conquest of the Palmyrene Empire in 273. The following...
(destined to be another military Emperor) as his adopted son. There are no grounds to believe this is anything other than invention.
- In the Tyranni Triginta, the author 'Trebellius Pollio' sets out to chronicle 'the 30 usurpers who arose in the years when the Empire was ruled by Gallienus and Valerian' (I, 1). The number 30 is evidently modelled on the notorious 'Thirty TyrantsThirty TyrantsThe Thirty Tyrants were a pro-Spartan oligarchy installed in Athens after its defeat in the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC. Contemporary Athenians referred to them simply as "the oligarchy" or "the Thirty" ; the expression "Thirty Tyrants" is due to later historians...
' who ruled Athens after the end of the Peloponnesian War. The chapter contains 32 mini-biographies. They include two women, six youths, and seven men who never claimed the imperial power; one usurper of the reign of Maximinus ThraxMaximinus ThraxMaximinus Thrax , also known as Maximinus I, was Roman Emperor from 235 to 238.Maximinus is described by several ancient sources, though none are contemporary except Herodian's Roman History. Maximinus was the first emperor never to set foot in Rome...
, one of the time of Decius, and two of the time of Aurelian; and four who are entirely fictitious.
- The Emperor TacitusMarcus Claudius TacitusTacitus , was Roman Emperor from 275 to 276. During his short reign he campaigned against the Goths and the Heruli, for which he received the title Gothicus Maximus.-Biography:Tacitus was born in Interamna , in Italia...
is acclaimed by the Senate, meeting in the 'Curia Pompiliana' (no such building) and after orations by the consul 'Velius Cornificius Gordianus' (no such person) and 'Maecius Faltonius Nicomachus' (ditto: most of the 'Maecii' in the HA are invented), he goes to the Campus MartiusCampus MartiusThe Campus Martius , was a publicly owned area of ancient Rome about in extent. In the Middle Ages, it was the most populous area of Rome...
and is presented to the troops by the Prefect of the City 'Aelius Cesettianus' (no such person) and the Praetorian PrefectPraetorian prefectPraetorian prefect was the title of a high office in the Roman Empire. Originating as the commander of the Praetorian Guard, the office gradually acquired extensive legal and administrative functions, with its holders becoming the Emperor's chief aides...
'Moesius Gallicanus' (ditto: the HA has several invented 'Gallicani'). Private letters commending Tacitus are quoted from the senators 'Autronius Tiberianus' and 'Claudius Sapilianus' (no reason to believe in them, either). (Syme, op. cit., pp. 238–239)
- In the Quadrigae Tyrannorum, the author includes FirmusFirmusFirmus was a Roman usurper against Aurelian. His story is told by the often unreliable Historia Augusta twice, with the first account the most sketchy and reliable.- Life of the historical Firmus :...
, said to have been a usurper in Egypt under Aurelian. There is no certainty that this person ever existed, and the HAs wealth of detail about him is wilful invention: he would eat an ostrich a day, he had a carriage drawn by ostriches, he would swim among crocodiles, he built himself a palace out of cubes of glass, and so on.
- In the Life of Probus (Ch.XXIV, 1-3), the author 'Flavius Vopiscus of Syracuse' states that the Emperor's descendants (posteri) fled from Rome and settled near VeronaVeronaVerona ; German Bern, Dietrichsbern or Welschbern) is a city in the Veneto, northern Italy, with approx. 265,000 inhabitants and one of the seven chef-lieus of the region. It is the second largest city municipality in the region and the third of North-Eastern Italy. The metropolitan area of Verona...
. There a statue of Probus was struck by lightning, a portent according to soothsayers 'that future generations of the family would rise to such distinction in the senate they all would hold the highest posts', though Vopiscus (supposedly writing under Constantine) says this prophecy has not yet come to pass. This is one of the strongest indications of the HAs late fourth-century date, as it seems to be a fairly transparent allusion to the rich and powerful senator Sextus Claudius Petronius ProbusSextus Claudius Petronius ProbusSextus Claudius Petronius Probus was a leading Roman aristocrat of the later 4th century, renowned for his wealth, power and social connections.-Family:...
(consul in 371371Year 371 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Augustus and Petronius...
) whose two sons held the consulship together in 395395Year 395 was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Olybrius and Probinus...
. Petronius Probus was born in Verona.
Marius Maximus or 'Ignotus'?
Certain scholars have always defended the value of specific parts of the work. Anthony BirleyAnthony Birley
Anthony Richard Birley was the Professor of Ancient History at University of Manchester and at University of Düsseldorf . He is the son of the archaeologist Eric Birley, who bought the house next to Vindolanda where Anthony and his brother Robin began to excavate the site...
has argued, for instance, that the lives up to Septimius Severus are based on the now-lost biographies of Marius Maximus
Marius Maximus
Marius Maximus was a Roman biographer, writing in Latin, who in the early decades of the 3rd century AD wrote a series of biographies of twelve Emperors, imitating and continuing Suetonius. Marius’s work is lost, but it was still being read in the late 4th century and was used as a source by...
, which were written as a sequel to Suetonius
Suetonius
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, commonly known as Suetonius , was a Roman historian belonging to the equestrian order in the early Imperial era....
' Lives of the Twelve Caesars
Lives of the Twelve Caesars
De vita Caesarum commonly known as The Twelve Caesars, is a set of twelve biographies of Julius Caesar and the first 11 emperors of the Roman Empire written by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus.The work, written in AD 121 during the reign of the emperor Hadrian, was the most popular work of Suetonius,...
. As a result, his translation of the History for Penguin Books
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
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) was vigorously contested by Syme, who held that virtually all the identifiable citations from Marius Maximus are more or less frivolous interpolations into the main narrative source, which he postulated was a different author whom he styled 'Ignotus ("the unknown one"), the good biographer'. He argued that as far as is known Marius did not write a biography of Lucius Verus, even though the biography of that prince in the History is mainly of good quality, and that 'Ignotus' only went up to Caracalla, as is revealed by the lamentable biography of Macrinus.
Historical value
More than a century of criticism, argument and counter-argument have argued that the Augustan History is not a reliable source for the period that it purports to cover, and it is especially unreliable in that era for which it is one of the very few written sources, the years 253–284.Inextricably entangled in its fictions and jokes, however – and especially in the earlier biographies – is a wealth of genuine historical information of which it is often the sole transmitter. For example, it is the sole ancient authority for the construction of the Antonine Wall
Antonine Wall
The Antonine Wall is a stone and turf fortification built by the Romans across what is now the Central Belt of Scotland, between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde. Representing the northernmost frontier barrier of the Roman Empire, it spanned approximately 39 miles and was about ten feet ...
in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
during the reign of Antoninus Pius
Antoninus Pius
Antoninus Pius , also known as Antoninus, was Roman Emperor from 138 to 161. He was a member of the Nerva-Antonine dynasty and the Aurelii. He did not possess the sobriquet "Pius" until after his accession to the throne...
.
Criticism of the current orthodox view
It is worth considering that not all scholars have accepted the theory of a forger working around the last decades of the fourth century or beginning of the fifth. Arnaldo MomiglianoArnaldo Momigliano
Arnaldo Dante Momigliano KBE was an Italian historian known for his work in historiography, characterized by Donald Kagan as the "world’s leading student of the writing of history in the ancient world." He became Professor of Roman history at the University of Turin in 1936, but as a Jew soon lost...
and A.H.M. Jones were the most prominent critics of the Dessau-Syme theory amongst English-speaking scholars during the 20th century. Momigliano, summarizing literature from Dessau down to 1954, defined the question as “res iudicanda” and not as “res iudicata”. Momigliano reviewed every book published on the topic by Sir Ronald Syme, and was able to provide counter arguments to most if not all of Syme’s arguments.
See also
- Thirty Tyrants (Roman)Thirty Tyrants (Roman)The Thirty Tyrants were a series of thirty rulers that appear in the Historia Augusta as having ostensibly been pretenders to the throne of the Roman Empire during the reign of the emperor Gallienus....
– about the Tyranni Triginta, one of the books of the Historia Augusta - Titus Aurelius FulvusTitus Aurelius FulvusIn the 1st century there were two men with the name Titus Aurelius Fulvus. One was the paternal grandfather and the other the father to the Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius....
- Enmannsche KaisergeschichteEnmannsche KaisergeschichteThe Enmannsche Kaisergeschichte is a modern term for a hypothesized Latin historical work, written in the 4th century but now lost....
External links
- Latin text and English translation at LacusCurtius
- Latin text with concordance and frequency list at the IntraText Digital Library
- http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/sha.htmlLatin text at The Latin LibraryThe Latin LibraryThe Latin Library is a website that collects public domain Latin texts. The texts have been drawn from different sources. Many were originally scanned and formatted from texts in the Public Domain. Others have been downloaded from various sites on the Internet . Most of the recent texts have been...
] - Livius.org: Introduction