David Rohrbacher, "The Sources of the Historia Augusta Reexamined"

Ancient Studies Articles

David Rohrbacher (NCF) is a prominent scholar of late antique historiography. In this important article, he weighs in on the sources of the (in)famous Historia Augusta. If you like this article, I would try his excellent book, Historians of Late Antiquity.
"Abstract: The first step toward unravelling the mysteries of the late Roman biographical collection called the Historia Augusta is to separate out the authentic historical material from the fictions which the author offers in abundance. This article presents a careful re- examination of the evidence for the sources of each section of the work, concluding that the author draws upon Enmann’s Kaisergeschichte and its progeny, Marius Maximus, Herodian, Dexippus, and, for the last Lives, a Greek source, perhaps Eunapius."

Link to Histos Table of Contents.

Link to the Article PDF.

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