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APPENDIX OF AUTHORS AND WORKS
Cookery Book is regularly revised and re-edited. The difficulty, however, is to see
why anyone should have wanted to revise such a collection of imperial biographies
once, let alone many times over the course of two centuries. Von Domaszewski's
position was almost a reductio ad absurdum of the whole concept of an original text
subsequently revised. For a time some scholars, of whom the most distinguished was
Baynes, argued that the Hist. Aug. was indeed a forgery, but that it should be dated in
360—2, when it was allegedly written as propaganda for the emperor Julian. 1 This
theory has now been generally abandoned. The alleged allusions to items of Julian's
policy are not at all clear. Recently Momigliano 2 has re-examined the whole problem
and come to the tentative conclusion that Dessau's original charges are not proven,
and that the Hist. Aug. may be just what it purports to be. His very cautious fundamentalist
position has not inspired much enthusiasm, and most scholars today adhere
to some variant of Dessau's hypothesis. Among these may be numbered Hartke, 3
Chastagnol,* Straub, 5 and Mazzarino. 6 All these seek some public or political motivation
for the forgery. Syme 7 has recently argued with great cogency that the work
may rather be inspired by the delight in mystification and invention for its own
sake, a theory which would bring the Hist. Aug. closer to such romantic works
of history as the pseudonymous accounts of the Trojan war or the Alexander
Romance. The controversy continues. 8
BIBLIOGRAPHY
TEXT: E. Hohl, suppl. C. Seyfarth and I. Samberger (BT, 1965).
STUDIES: Works cited in the footnotes to the excursus and the following: W.
Hartke, Geschichte und Politik im spatantiken Rom. Untersuchungen uher die Scriptores
Historiae Augustae (Leipzig 1940); H. Stern, Date et destinataire de VHistoire Auguste
(Paris 1953); Bonner Historia-Augusta Colloquium 1—4 (1964—70); E. K. Merten, Zwei
Herrscherfeste in der His toria Augusta (Bonn 1968); R. Syme, Ammianus and the
Historia Augusta (Oxford 1968); F. Kolb, Literarische Be^iehungen ^wischen Cassius
Dio, Herodian und der Historia Augusta (Bonn 1972); K. P. Johne, Kaiserbiographie
und Senatsaris tokratie (Berlin 1976: good summary of history of the problem 11—46);
T. D. Barnes, The sources of the Historia Augusta (Brussels 1978).
1
N. H. Baynes, The Historia Augusta. Its date and purpose (Oxford 1926).
2
A. Momigliano, 'An unsolved problem of historical forgery', Journal of the Warburg and
CourtauldInstitutes 17 (1954) 12—46 = Studies in historiography (London 1966) 143—80.
3
W. Hartke, Rb'mische Kinderkaiser (Berlin 1951).
4
A. Chastagnol, Recherches sur I'Histoire Auguste (Bonn 1970).
5
J. Straub, Heidnische Geschkhtsapologett'k in der christlichen Spdtandke (Bonn 1963).
6
S. Mazzarino, IIpensiero storico classico II (Bari 1966) 2 216—47.
' R. Syme, Emperors and biography. Studies in the Historia Augusta (Oxford 1971).
8
Most recent survey of the literature by K. P. Johne, Kaiser-biographie und Senatsaristokratie
(Berlin 1976) 11—46.
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