Kenney_and_Clausen B.M.W.(eds.) - Get a Free Blog

BIOGRAPHY
wise unknown authorities are quoted, some for their writings, others for
information supplied orally.
Since its first publication the Historia Augusta has been recognized to be a
particularly unreliable source. The majority of the numerous documents which
it contains were soon shown to be false. No differences in language and style
could be detected between the six authors. The distribution of the various
Lives between them was found capricious. And there were inconsistencies —
Spartianus in his Life of Niger (8.3) claims to be about to write the Life of
Clodius Albinus, but that Life is actually attributed to Julius Capitolinus.
Readers saw more and more apparent allusions to persons and events of the
later fourth century in these Lives allegedly composed at the beginning of the
century. And verbal echoes of the Caesares of Aurelius Victor, published in
360, and of the Breviarium of Eutropius, published in 370, suggest dependence
on these works, since neither Aurelius Victor nor Eutropius was in the habit
of copying out his sources verbatim. But no systematic explanation of the
cause or nature of the unreliability was offered by scholarship until the late
nineteenth century, when it was argued that the whole work was a forgery,
written by a single hand towards the end of the fourth century, and reflecting
the views and events of that period. Attempts to defend the authenticity of the
Historia Augusta by postulating a later edition or a series of editors have
in general foundered, as has the suggestion that it was a work of propaganda
on behalf of the emperor Julian. Today most scholars accept that the work is a
piece of deliberate mystification, written much later than its purported date,
though the fundamentalist position still has distinguished support. Those
who believe the Historia Augusta to be a forgery are not in agreement on its
purpose. Some argue that the work is a piece of propaganda, probably connected
with the pagan senatorial reaction at the end of the fourth century.
Others point out that the political views expressed in the lives are trivial
and that it is better seen as a hoax, the product of the eccentric imagination
of some maverick grammaticus, to be compared with the roughly contemporary
correspondence of Seneca and St Paul (cf. Appendix) or the later historical
fantasies of Geoffrey of Monmouth. No solution to the problems presented by
the Historia Augusta is ever likely to satisfy all critics. Too much depends on
subjective valuation. And it is never easy to determine whether an error or
absurdity is better explained as the result of misunderstanding or imposture.
Knaves and fools cannot always be distinguished a millennium and a half later. •
Be that as it may, the value of the collection for the historian depends
largely on the sources used. As has been observed, a great many authorities
are quoted whose existence can be neither proved nor disproved, since they are
1
Cf. Appendix, for a brief history of the controversy on the nature and date of the Historia
Augusta.
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