About the book
Anonymous is the only name attached to the Augustan History, a late fourth-century work that is the main surviving source on Rome's emperors between 117 and 284 AD, and one of the most disputed works left from ancient Rome. The volume holds the first half of that History, with lives of each emperor from Hadrian through Heliogabalus, including the godlike Marcus Antonius and Commodus, his corrupt son. Its author blends real history with invented anecdotes and faked documents, many of them about imperial depravity. The result is the fullest account of these later Caesars and also an unreliable one, a mix of truth, invention and humour.
Ryan Holiday put it on his list of 13 moral biographies, describing the lives as part myth, part legend and part fact about the Roman emperors.
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This book has 1 recommendation
Ryan Holiday (Founder/Brass Check)
Written by an anonymous author (possibly multiple) in the 4th century, these biographies are a mix of myth, legend and fact about some of the most powerful men who ever lived: the Roman emperors. We have Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius, Trajan, Avidius Cassius, Severus and countless others. I’m sure you can guess my favorite subject. Also try The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius Translated by the peerless Robert Graves, these are more biographies of the Roman emperors—from Julius Ceasar to Domitian.
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