Helping San Diego, California and beyond since 1997.
Do you need
volunteer, community service, work, military or court hours?
|
|
Helping San Diego, California and beyond since 1997.
|
|
Click here and add this page to your favorites!
|
Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: AUD-BAI |
|
|
AUGUSTAN HISTORY , the name given to a collection of the biographies of the Roman emperors from Hadrian to Carinus (A.D. 117-284). The work professes to have been written during the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine, and is to be regarded as the composition of six authors,Aelius Spartianus, Julius Capitolinus; Aelius Lampridius, Vulcacius Gallicanus, Trebellius Pollio and Flavius Vopiscusknown as Scriptores Historiae Augustae, writers of Augustan history. It is generally agreed, however, that there is a large number of interpolations in the work, which are referred to the reign of Theodosius ; and that the documents inserted in the lives are almost all forgeries. The more advanced school of critics holds that the names of the supposed authors are purely fictitious, as those of some of the authorities which they profess to quote certainly are. The lives, which (with few exceptions) are arranged in chronological order, are distributed as follows:To Spartianus: the biographies of Hadrian, Aelius Verus, Didius Julianus, Septimius Severus, Pescennius Niger, Caracallus, Geta (?); to Vulcacius Gallicanus : Avidius Cassius ; to Capitolinus : Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Verus, Pertinax, Clodius Albinus, the two Maximins, the three Gordians, Maximus and Balbinus, Opilius Macrinus (?) ; to Lampridius : Commodus, Diadumenus, Elagabalus, Alexander Severus; to Pollio: the two Valerians, the Gallieni, the so-called Thirty Tyrants or Usurpers, Claudius (his lives of Philip, Decius, and Gallus being lost); to Vopiscus: Aurelian, Tacitus, Florian, Probus, the four tyrants (Firmus, Saturninus, Proculus, Bonosus), Carus, Numerian, Carinus.The importance of the Augustan history as a repertory of information is very considerable, but its literary pretensions are of the humblest order. The writers' standard was confessedly low. " My purpose," says Vopiscus, " has been to provide materials for persons more eloquent than I." Copsidering the perverted taste of the age, it is perhaps fortunate that the task fell into the hands of no showy declaimer who measured his success by his skill in making surface do duty for substance, but of homely, matter-of-fact scribes, whose sole concern was to record what they knew. Their narrative is unmethodical and inartificial ; their style is tame and plebeian ; their conception of biography is that of a collection of anecdotes ; they have no notion of arrangement, no measure of proportion, and no criterion of discrimination between the important and the trivial; they are equally destitute of critical and of historical insight, unable to sift the authorities on which they rely, and unsuspicious of the stupendous social revolution comprised within the period which they undertake to describe. Their value, consequently, depends very much on that of the sources to which they happen to have recourse for any given period of history, and on the fidelity of their adherence to these when valuable. Marius Maximus and Aelius Junius Cordus, to whose qualifications they themselves bear no favourable testimony, were their chief
series . Marius Maximus, who lived about 165230, wrote biographies of the emperors, in continuation of those of Suetonius, from Nerva to Elagabalus; Junius Cordus dealt with the less-known emperors, perhaps down to Maximus and Balbinus. The earlier lives, however, contain a substratum of authentic historical fact, which recent
opinion with substantial accuracy. The only imputation on the integrity of any of them lies against Trebellius Pollio, who, addressing his work to a descendant of Claudius, the successor and probably the assassin of Gallienus, has dwelt upon the latter versatile sovereign's carelessness and extravagance without acknowledgment of the elastic though fitful energy he so frequently displayed in defence of the empire. The caution of Vopiscus's references to Diocletian cannot be made a reproach to him.No biographical particulars are recorded respecting any of these writers. From their acquaintance with Latin and Greek literature they must have been men of letters by profession, and very probably secretaries or librarians to persons of distinction. There seems no reason to accept Gibbon's contemptuous estimate of their social position. They appear particularly versed in law. Spartianus's reference to himself as " Diocletian's own " seems to indicate that he was a domestic in the imperial household. They address their patrons with deference, acknowledging their own deficiencies, and seem painfully conscious of the profession of literature having fallen upon evil days. Editio princeps (Milan, 1495); Casaubon (1603) showed great critical ability in his notes, but for want of a good MS. left the restoration of the text to Salmasius (162o), whose notes are a most remark-able monument of erudition, combined with acuteness in verbal criticism and general vigour of intellect. Of recent
series (2nd ed., 1884) contains (praef. xxxv
special
Scriptores Historiae Augustae (1892); G. Tropea, Studi sugli Scriptores Historiae Augustae (18991903) ; J. M. Heer, Der historische Wert der Vita Commodi in der Sammlung der Scriptores Historiae Augustae (1901); C. Lecrivain, Etudes sur l'histoire Auguste (1904); E. Kornemann, Kaiser Hadrian and der letzte grosse Historiker von Rom (1905), according to whom " the last great historian of Rome " is Lollius Urbicus; O. Schulz, Das Kaiserhaus der Antonin and der letzte Historiker Roms (1907). On their style, see C. Paucker, De Latinitate Scriptorum Historiae Augustae (1870); special
Bernard
End of Article: AUGUSTAN HISTORY If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/AUD_BAI/AUGUSTAN_HISTORY.html"> AUGUSTAN HISTORY </a> |
|
|
(Previous) AUGUSTA PRAETORIA SALASSORUM (mod. Aosta, q.v.) |
(Next) AUGUSTI, JOHANN CHRISTIAN WILHELM (1772-1841) |
|
Sponsored Advertisements