Ammianus and the Historia Augusta

Sir Ronald Syme gives us a highly entertaining characterization of the author and his work, together with a sketch of the literary, social and religious context. By comparing it with the Historiae of Ammianus Marcellinus he puts the probable publication date between 392 and 395. For Sir Ronald Syme, it is a historical fiction about gods and bad emperors. The author chose to pass himself off as six biographers. He invented a whole school of precursors as rivals to cite, to confute, to mock and to expose.