This book provides biographical information for Roman emperors of the third century.

By turns outlandish, humorous, and scatological, the Historia Augusta is an eccentric compilation of biographies of the Roman emperors and usurpers of the second and third centuries. Historians of late antiquity have struggled to explain the fictional date and authorship of the work and its bizarre content (did the Emperor Carinus really swim in pools of floating apples and melons? did the usurper Proculus really deflower a hundred virgins in fifteen days?). David Rohrbacher offers, instead, a literary analysis of the work, focusing on its many playful allusions. Marshaling an array of interdisciplinary research and original analysis, he contends that the Historia Augusta originated in a circle of scholarly readers with an interest in biography, and that its allusions and parodies were meant as puzzles and jokes for a knowing and appreciative audience.

This volume brings together fifteen studies written since 1972 on the notorious Historia Augusta. Syme advances the theory, supported by computer evidence, that the papers are the work of only one person, rather than six as they purport, and that they were written considerably later than the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine. He argues that, taken as a whole, the papers are a work of "fictional history" and constitute an elaborate and erudite hoax.

"This short monograph examines the authorship, date, context, redaction and reception of the Historia Augusta - a corpus of biographies of emperors and usurpers of the second and third centuries, which purports to be the work of six writers active in the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine. Thomson accepts the widely held view that one author, a scholarly impostor, composed and redacted the Historia Augusta some time after about 395. Internal evidence -which includes administrative anachronisms and allusions to events, as well as spurious names, genealogies and documents - suggests that the corpus was intended for an audience among the Roman elite of the end of the fourth century. Thomson argues that the lives were not written for a polemical purpose. Their author instead responded to widespread interest in the works of Suetonius and Marius Maximus; his countless fabrications represented attempts to fill lacunae in the record with material appropriate to the genre of imperial biography. To this end, the scholarly impostor plundered the tradition for literary models and historical examples, apparently unmoved by the strict demands of chronology. This monograph advances several arguments that may be considered innovative. After examining the evidence of the text and the tradition, Thomson substantively revises existing theories on the redaction of the corpus. He proposes that an extant collection of panegyrics (the Panegyrici Latini) -or some similar work now lost- may have provided a model for the otherwise baffling imposture of collective authorship and tetrarchic date. Thomson also tentatively suggests a connection between the scholarly impostor, the spurious author Flavius Vopiscus Syracusius and a Syracusan poetaster and antiquarian active in the relevant period (Naucellius)."--Publisher's website.

The classicist and historian Alan Cameron (1938-2017) was one of the scholars who most contributed to the refoundation of late-antique studies. In this tribute fourteen new studies, which range from the first century AD to the ninth, pay him homage.

Sabina Augusta: An Imperial Journey traces the development of Sabina's partnership with her husband, the emperor Hadrian (reigned 117-138), and shows the vital importance of the empress for Hadrian's own aspirations.

The fourth and fifth centuries AD were an era of religious conflict, political change and military conflict. The responses of contemporary historians to these turbulent times reflect their diverse backgrounds - Christian and pagan, writing in both Greek and Latin, documenting church and state. This volume is the first to offer an accessible survey of the lives and works of these varied figures. The first half of the book explores the structure, style, purpose and nature of their writings. The second half compares and contrasts the information the historians provide, and the views they express on some central topics. These range from historiography, government and religion to barbarian invasions, and the controversial emperors Julian 'The Apostate' and Theodosius.