Historia Augusta

Name: Historia Augusta
Author: Aelius Spartianus et al.

Aelius Spartianus et al.

A set of imperial biographies from Hadrian to the end of the Third Century crisis, of disputed authorship and date, read now as much for what its fabrications reveal about later Roman historiography as for its facts.

Read it

Where it is now wrong

Large parts are forged. The six authors named on it almost certainly never existed: since Dessau in 1889 the consensus is that one anonymous writer produced it around AD 400, inventing letters, documents and whole people. Read it as evidence about his century.

Before you start

This translation: David Magie's Loeb translation, via LacusCurtius.

Read these first

Not a difficulty warning — a route. These are in the library too.

The Lives of the Twelve CaesarsSuetonius, 121Biography as character study: each emperor is judged by private vice and public act together, which set the pattern for how Rome's rulers have been remembered ever since.

Filed under Ancient Rome in History.