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Lives of the Later Caesars
One of the most controversial of all works to survive from ancient Rome, the Augustan History is our main source of information about the Roman emperors from 117 to 284 AD. Written in the late fourth century by an anonymous author, it is an enigmatic combination of truth, invention and humour. This volume contains the first half of the History, and includes biographies of every emperor from Hadrian to Heliogabalus - among them the godlike Marcus Antonius and his grotesquely corrupt son Commodus. The History contains many fictitious (but highly entertaining) anecdotes about the depravity of the emperors, as the author blends historical fact and faked documents to present our most complete - albeit unreliable - account of the later Roman Caesars.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 385
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June 26, 2019Lives of the Later Caesars, a translation of the first half of the Augustan History, is fairly dreary reading compared to The Twelve Caesars, it reads like a debased version of Suetonius, lacking his chatty style and eye for odd details like the Emperor Galba's tightrope walking elephants, or then again, maybe it is not the kind of thing to read while coughing and sneezing. Instead there are a series of Imperial lives covering, in this translation, the period from 117 to 222 AD with an eye to the scandalous and the scurrilous. An odd work, it has been suggested that it was a hoax or a parody, with a tendency to be catty in regard to Imperial sex lives: oh, Hadrian spends time with the Emperor Trajan's boyfriends Miieeeoooww!
There could be a good reason for this in that it has been argued since the end of the nineteenth century that the Augustan History was written in the fourth century by one author, who for some reason decided to pretend that it was an older work, the compilation of six separate writers. If that is the case then one reason for a lack of liveliness might be the source material, certainly how the author used that material, chopping it and repeating the same details in different lives to create separate lives of co-Emperors and pretenders some of which have so much fictional material in them that there are footnotes to tell you when something is accurate.
There is also some recycling from Suetonius with some "bad Emperors" doing the same things as Nero or Caligua (like Lucius Versus beating people up in the streets at night and returning to the palace with a black eye) rather than having eccentricities of their own, although Commodus does try to be different - hitting people on the head with the statue of Anubis during cult celebrations and that kind of thing.
In common with Suetonius many interesting stories fall by the wayside. The Augustan History is the only literary source to record that Hadrian and Antoninus Pius built walls across Britain - but that is literally all that it says about their wall building. On the other hand it has a full account of omens, dreams and inspections of entrails (bizarrely there is at least one animal without a heart - you'd think someone might have noticed that before it was sacrificed, although admittedly medical theory at the time didn't understand the role of the heart in the circulation of the blood). Least convincing omen has to be Septimius Severus realising that he too will be Emperor one day when he sees a man reading Suetonius' The Twelve Caesars.
Some of the careers that future Emperors have before ascending to the Imperial are interesting for instance Pertinax who started off as a school teacher, transferred to the army had a variety of posts and then got to be Emperor, if only for less than three months in the year 193 AD,.
The final life is that of Heliogabalus who ruled from the age of fourteen until he was eighteen (218-222 AD). Among his pets he kept lions and leopards which had been rendered harmless, and as they had been trained by tamers, he used to order them suddenly during the second and third course to get up on the couches to stir up panic, no one being aware that they were harmless or he harnessed four huge dogs to his chariot and drove about within the royal residence, which are the typical kinds of thing that one would expect a teen-aged Roman emperor to do.
Heliogabalus has had a curious afterlife. The author of Lives of the Later Caesars plainly doesn't like him, mentioning his decadent habits - serving meals all of one colour, with pearls or amber mixed in with the food (which must given the dentists much extra work), sex with men and women, bringing his grandmother into the Senate house, dressing like a woman and generally doing all he could to look like a woman including getting married to a man (as well as being married to a woman). All of which has stirred up a wide range of interest in his character.
Weingarten has an interesting discussion about him that puts him in some context. Heliogabalus was Syrian and High Priest of Elagabalus, assumed to be an equivalent of Sol Invictus or Helios as such he wore long vestments which looked like a dress. Worse, he was circumcised, the Jewish rebellion under Hadrian is given this description: the Jews set a war in motion, because they were forbidden to mutilate their genitals, there were limits to Roman cultural sensitivity. Still yet worse the worship of Elagabalus required him to dance round the temple to the music of cymbals. Rome was not amused. As Weingarten puts it he was seen as Syrian and therefore effeminate, therefore resolutely un-Roman. And he had been put on the throne by a constellation of well connected female relatives. Which I suppose only served to illustrate how hopelessly un-Roman and despicably effeminate he was to contemporary opinion, instead of seizing power the traditional Roman way - by bribing enough soldiers.
Most significantly though he had the chief festival of Elagabalus added to the official calender, the date of which was the 25th of December. This was later taken over as the date of Christmas.
There could be a good reason for this in that it has been argued since the end of the nineteenth century that the Augustan History was written in the fourth century by one author, who for some reason decided to pretend that it was an older work, the compilation of six separate writers. If that is the case then one reason for a lack of liveliness might be the source material, certainly how the author used that material, chopping it and repeating the same details in different lives to create separate lives of co-Emperors and pretenders some of which have so much fictional material in them that there are footnotes to tell you when something is accurate.
There is also some recycling from Suetonius with some "bad Emperors" doing the same things as Nero or Caligua (like Lucius Versus beating people up in the streets at night and returning to the palace with a black eye) rather than having eccentricities of their own, although Commodus does try to be different - hitting people on the head with the statue of Anubis during cult celebrations and that kind of thing.
In common with Suetonius many interesting stories fall by the wayside. The Augustan History is the only literary source to record that Hadrian and Antoninus Pius built walls across Britain - but that is literally all that it says about their wall building. On the other hand it has a full account of omens, dreams and inspections of entrails (bizarrely there is at least one animal without a heart - you'd think someone might have noticed that before it was sacrificed, although admittedly medical theory at the time didn't understand the role of the heart in the circulation of the blood). Least convincing omen has to be Septimius Severus realising that he too will be Emperor one day when he sees a man reading Suetonius' The Twelve Caesars.
Some of the careers that future Emperors have before ascending to the Imperial are interesting for instance Pertinax who started off as a school teacher, transferred to the army had a variety of posts and then got to be Emperor, if only for less than three months in the year 193 AD,.
The final life is that of Heliogabalus who ruled from the age of fourteen until he was eighteen (218-222 AD). Among his pets he kept lions and leopards which had been rendered harmless, and as they had been trained by tamers, he used to order them suddenly during the second and third course to get up on the couches to stir up panic, no one being aware that they were harmless or he harnessed four huge dogs to his chariot and drove about within the royal residence, which are the typical kinds of thing that one would expect a teen-aged Roman emperor to do.
Heliogabalus has had a curious afterlife. The author of Lives of the Later Caesars plainly doesn't like him, mentioning his decadent habits - serving meals all of one colour, with pearls or amber mixed in with the food (which must given the dentists much extra work), sex with men and women, bringing his grandmother into the Senate house, dressing like a woman and generally doing all he could to look like a woman including getting married to a man (as well as being married to a woman). All of which has stirred up a wide range of interest in his character.
Weingarten has an interesting discussion about him that puts him in some context. Heliogabalus was Syrian and High Priest of Elagabalus, assumed to be an equivalent of Sol Invictus or Helios as such he wore long vestments which looked like a dress. Worse, he was circumcised, the Jewish rebellion under Hadrian is given this description: the Jews set a war in motion, because they were forbidden to mutilate their genitals, there were limits to Roman cultural sensitivity. Still yet worse the worship of Elagabalus required him to dance round the temple to the music of cymbals. Rome was not amused. As Weingarten puts it he was seen as Syrian and therefore effeminate, therefore resolutely un-Roman. And he had been put on the throne by a constellation of well connected female relatives. Which I suppose only served to illustrate how hopelessly un-Roman and despicably effeminate he was to contemporary opinion, instead of seizing power the traditional Roman way - by bribing enough soldiers.
Most significantly though he had the chief festival of Elagabalus added to the official calender, the date of which was the 25th of December. This was later taken over as the date of Christmas.
February 18, 2015
One would think that, in order to survive some 1600-1700 years, a Roman text must have a certain level of quality. Apparently, not always. Lives of the Later Caesars, by Anonymous (of whom I expected better things), builds on the popularity of Suetonius's earlier Lives of the Twelve Caesars by continuing the sequence from Nerva on.
It is now thought that the work had a single author, though he used invented authors for individual sections, such as Capitolinus, Lampridius, Spartianus, and Gallicanus -- none of whom were ever referenced in any other known written work.
This would not matter if the biographies were any good. The earlier emperors, from Hadrian through Commodus tend to be acceptable, but then Anonymous descends to just making up stuff. Judge, for example, the following said of Clodius Albinus:
Not only does Anonymous invent authors for the individual biographies, but when he thinks it would help, he invents experts to back him up.
Toward the end, the name Antoninus became part of every emperor's name (because of the veneration in which Antonnus Pius and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus were held), and Anonymous builds on the confusion by just referring to each one as Antoninus by itself. At one point, "Lampridius," in his biography of Diadumenus Antoninus writes, "Indeed, so beloved was the name of the Antonines in those times that those who did not have the support of that name seemed not to have deserved imperial power."
After Marcus Aurelius's death, the Roman Empire entered a truly dismal period, in which the only variety seemed to be how each bearer of the title was murdered. The most interesting was Heliogabalus, whose body was dunked into a swer, and then weighted with stones and thrown into the Tiber.
Dismal as the period was, this book makes for some dismal reading, with unnecessary confusion to boot. I suppose Anthony Birley did a yeomanlike job translating it, but it does seem that the original was pretty punk.
It is now thought that the work had a single author, though he used invented authors for individual sections, such as Capitolinus, Lampridius, Spartianus, and Gallicanus -- none of whom were ever referenced in any other known written work.
This would not matter if the biographies were any good. The earlier emperors, from Hadrian through Commodus tend to be acceptable, but then Anonymous descends to just making up stuff. Judge, for example, the following said of Clodius Albinus:
Cordus, who recounts such things in his books, says that [Clodius Albinus] was a glutton, so much so indeed that he used to consume a greater quantity of fruit than human capacities permit. For he says that Albinus, when hungry, ate five hundred dried figs ..., a hundred Campanian peaches, ten Ostian melons, twenty pounds of Labican grapes, a hundred fig-peckers and four hundred oysters.Now, that's quite an appetite! Guaranteed to kill any human long before they got to the thirtieth fig-pecker, whatever that is!
Not only does Anonymous invent authors for the individual biographies, but when he thinks it would help, he invents experts to back him up.
Toward the end, the name Antoninus became part of every emperor's name (because of the veneration in which Antonnus Pius and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus were held), and Anonymous builds on the confusion by just referring to each one as Antoninus by itself. At one point, "Lampridius," in his biography of Diadumenus Antoninus writes, "Indeed, so beloved was the name of the Antonines in those times that those who did not have the support of that name seemed not to have deserved imperial power."
After Marcus Aurelius's death, the Roman Empire entered a truly dismal period, in which the only variety seemed to be how each bearer of the title was murdered. The most interesting was Heliogabalus, whose body was dunked into a swer, and then weighted with stones and thrown into the Tiber.
Dismal as the period was, this book makes for some dismal reading, with unnecessary confusion to boot. I suppose Anthony Birley did a yeomanlike job translating it, but it does seem that the original was pretty punk.
September 14, 2012
So funny. Its academic name is the Historia Augusta. Basically comparable to a tabloid printing all the nastiest gossip, and unfortunately one of our only extant sources for the period. Altogether an amusing and unreliable read.. Strongly recommend.
September 10, 2012
What a strange survival this is! Aptly described by the translator, Antony Birley, as a literary curiosity, this volume of imperial biographies is as intriguing for its deceptions about the author/s of the work as it is about the lives of the emperors and usurpers portrayed.
Why would our author present his work as the product of multiple biographers (suspect because the consistencies of style and theme within the collection argue for single authorship) and why would he invent sources and fake documents? Moreover, our biographer, who continues to evade identification, purports to write at an earlier date than his actual date (betrayed by various anachronisms, which place the work approx late 4th cent. AD) and then there's the mix of truth and fiction (not to mention scandal!) in his subject matter, the lives of the emperors and usurpers.
Is this elaborate fraud simply an amusing exercise in literary impersonation? Probably not, and perhaps there's some sort of contemporary propaganda at work - inter alia senatorial sympathies have been detected, and an anti-military stance in regard to political affairs, though neither operates consistently and no one seems to able to pin down the motives of the writer.
As for the text, it's not a stand out in terms of literary merit and even in translation you can see that our mysterious friend lacks the eloquence of a Cicero, or the dramatic flair of a Livy or a Suetonius, or the insightful analysis of a Tacitus. Also disappointing is the weakness of characterisation - portraits of individual rulers do not emerge clearly. These comparative deficits again make the survival of the work all the more curious...But what it does have going for it is that it's our most complete source for the period of the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. Naturally, then, historians of the period can't ignore it as a witness of sorts, but are stuck with its scholarly and literary shortcomings and the thorny question of its reliability.
Still, for its entertainment value (who doesn't relish a healthy dose of scandalous anecdote infused with outrageous invention and colourful suspicion?!) and its status as an unsolved mystery of late Roman biography/historiography, this volume is worth a look.
April 23, 2011
This is an odd one. It's maybe a literary forgery or hoax, but it's also a valuable source for this period of rome; the stuff it assumes you know for granted - Herodian's wall across England, for example - is an interesting mix of history from the Roman Empire while the stuff it tells you is more or less false.
On one hand, it's nice that Anthony Birley has taken the time to annotate the hell out of this thing, marking off what's fiction (and sometimes pointing out what really happened), especially when he elaborates on an odd statement in the middle of something completely fake. On the other, he only translated the first half of the MSS this came from.
Where does this book stand? More or less where Birley assumes it's supposed to: as a sequel to Suetonus. It spreads unflattering truths and insane fiction about the dirt of some really depraved guys like Commodus and Elagabalus while heaping praise on nicer people like Marcus Aurelius. He even goes into the usurpers, of which there are more than a few, all of whom meet the same fate. On the whole, it's a fascinating and weird book but one which does a good job at painting Rome's leaders in a period of crisis, both from within and without; the whole time I'm read this, I kept thinking this would have been a killer third season for HBO's Rome. If you liked The Twelve Caesars, you'll like this. Otherwise, start there first.
On one hand, it's nice that Anthony Birley has taken the time to annotate the hell out of this thing, marking off what's fiction (and sometimes pointing out what really happened), especially when he elaborates on an odd statement in the middle of something completely fake. On the other, he only translated the first half of the MSS this came from.
Where does this book stand? More or less where Birley assumes it's supposed to: as a sequel to Suetonus. It spreads unflattering truths and insane fiction about the dirt of some really depraved guys like Commodus and Elagabalus while heaping praise on nicer people like Marcus Aurelius. He even goes into the usurpers, of which there are more than a few, all of whom meet the same fate. On the whole, it's a fascinating and weird book but one which does a good job at painting Rome's leaders in a period of crisis, both from within and without; the whole time I'm read this, I kept thinking this would have been a killer third season for HBO's Rome. If you liked The Twelve Caesars, you'll like this. Otherwise, start there first.
September 9, 2016
Very amusing. Presented as an anthology of the writings of six pseudonymous authors. Likely much of it is fictional. candidate therefore for some sort of satire, menippean or otherwise?
April 21, 2022
Hadrian deserved a better biographer in my opinion.
January 26, 2023
The Historia Augusta is a strange confection of biography, history, and fiction. Purportedly written by six different authors during the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine, it is now generally agreed to be the work of one prankster toward the end of the fourth century. Despite its notoriously unreliable nature, it is one of the major sources for Roman history from Hadrian through Numerian (117-284). The HA is often salacious , cites bogus authorities and introduces fictitious characters. Some of the lives are a hopeless muddle. Still it can be entertaining (much like supermarket checkout tabloids) and occasionally provides real information not available elsewhere. For example, it is the only literary source for the building of Hadrian's Wall. And not all of the murders and orgies are fictitious.
Birley offers the first, more historically reliable part, from Hadrian through Heliogabalus (more commonly Elagabalus). His translation is quite readable, the intro provides an overview of problems and controversies arising from the HA, and the notes help sort out history from fiction.
Birley offers the first, more historically reliable part, from Hadrian through Heliogabalus (more commonly Elagabalus). His translation is quite readable, the intro provides an overview of problems and controversies arising from the HA, and the notes help sort out history from fiction.
May 5, 2025
AKA the “Augustan History”, this is a mix of fact and outright fabrication written over a century later than the reigns described, starting with Trajan c.100 CE and ending in the early third century with Elagabalus. The prose is somewhat stilted, and it’s nowhere near the guilty pleasure that Suetonius’s “Twelve Caesars” still is nearly two millennia later. It also covers some attempted usurpers, largely forgotten by history (Didius Julianus, anyone?). Still, of interest to Roman history buffs, and it does end with a ‘bang’, so to speak, with the lurid account of Elagabalus, perhaps the most debauched Emperor of them all.
I will try Cassius Dio sometime soon, and see how his accounts compare.
I will try Cassius Dio sometime soon, and see how his accounts compare.
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November 6, 2011Worth reading if only for the Life of Heliogabalus, the Roman Emperor who spent all his time trawling the baths for men with giant penises whom he'd bring back to the palace and have teh_buttsex with. And if they buttsexed particularly well he'd give them jobs running, like you know, Spain or whatever.
June 7, 2018
not particularly good as high history, maybe, but very good if you want to find out what the roman world was really like. Absorbing and fascinating, although one hs to take mosy of what's written here with large doses of salt
December 31, 2008
Birley's reconstruction of the lives of Nerva and Trajan is an admirable piece of "literary archaeology." And needless to say, the life of Elegabalus makes for very entertaining reading!
May 18, 2024
Half History, Half Mockery, The Enigmatic 'Historia Augusta' Is A Dangerous Combination Of Fact & Fiction.
On the surface, the base text comprising 'Lives of the Later Caesars', known in antiquity as the 'Historia Augusta' is a series of seventeen short biographies chronicling the lives of both Roman emperors as well as imperial usurpers & rebels, from the time when Hadrian became the princeps in 117 A.D., all the way up to 222 A.D., which was when (Heliogabalus) Elagabalus was killed & Severus Alexander succeeded him. Thanks to some remarkable reconstruction work by the translator Anthony Birley, also the author of the Roman Imperial Biography 'Marcus Aurelius', there are two contemporary, 100% factual biographies on the emperors Nerva & Trajan, reigning respectively, from 96-98 A.D. & 98-117 A.D., bringing the grand total to nineteen.
'Lives of the Later Caesars' features biographies 'prepared' by a group of six 'authors' that wrote them 'over the years' but thanks to Anthony Birley's very thorough & very informative introduction I learned that it is a widely-believed scholarly hypothesis (which means that it's considered to be the truth) that they were all written by one author, so the 'authors' are all fictitious names for the same person. Unless there were six men throughout history whose writing was possessed of the same farcical, lampoonish sarcasm, this is absolutely true. The statements being made sometimes go beyond being merely farcical in substance, I think 'pasquinade' would be the correct nomenclature. Have you ever had a conversation with someone who was so sarcastic that they don't even need to really "do" anything that people normally do when they're trying to "be" sarcastic? They just make completely normal statements, & you're like, wow, I can't believe it. That's exactly what reading the satirical portion of 'Lives of the Later Caesars' was like for me. Whoever this guy who wrote this was, I would've liked having met him.
After having read Suetonius' 'The Twelve Caesars', I had a fair idea of what to expect when I picked up the 'sequel', 'Lives of the Later Caesars'. What I didn't expect is how utterly hysterical certain portions of this book's 'narrative' truly are. My sense of humor probably is not what most people consider to be typical, but there were parts of this novel that made me laugh so hard I had to put it down for a while. I try to perceive what might have been going through the author's head when they were writing a compilation of this nature.
It's almost like somebody wanted to write a biographical work in the style of 'The Twelve Caesars' that was predominately, truth. The author only wanted to make fun of certain people, so for those specific sections (for which Birley has so kindly inserted annotations so as to alert uneducated laymen such as myself) he does it in a way that's so deftly accomplished it almost seems like he toys with the reader, using jibes & witticisms like some, maestro conducting a ridiculous caricature of a symphony orchestra, with your believing in the nonsense being fed to you only increasing the tempo. The thing is, this ridicule only is implemented for specific people in the narrative, mostly usurpers or imperial pretenders. The actual emperors' biographies are largely factual in nature, with the false statements usually being accidental, & from what I observed, more often than not, it is date-related & of a numeric nature.
The proper scholarly title of 'Lives of the Later Caesars' is 'Augustan History' & technically, it's only one half of a larger extant body of work. The second half is completely fallacious in nature from what Birley's introduction informs us, also, it is NOT part of 'Lives of the Later Caesars'. Before I speak on the humorous parts, I want to talk about the truthful ones. Because there are some really awesome cultural references that maybe people will identify with in the same way I did. Does anyone know about Hadrian's Wall in Great Britain? The emperor Hadrian has a lengthy biography that I had fun reading, albeit there is but one single statement that pertains to Hadrian's Wall, which is the only documented historical proof we have that he was the one who built it.
How about the movie 'Gladiator'? There is a biography of the famous Marcus Aurelius, who Richard Harris is now universally known for having portrayed. And there's a joke that the author never seems to get tired of, regarding the documenting of men using the cognomen 'Antonius' who in reality, never used it. There's a biography of the infamous Commodus, son of Marcus Aurelius, played by Joaquin Phoenix. The REAL Commodus was quite an interesting man, when you get to reading about him. Narcissism proved to be his undoing, however. I'll not spoil it for you, I will say that it's worth reading to see how depraved Commodus actually was. Also there is a brief mentioning of the poor Lucilla, daughter of Aurelius & sister to Commodus, played by Connie Nielsen in 'Gladiator', as well as the father of Spencer Treat Clark's character, who has a biography of his own. In the movie, Lucius Aurelius Varrus was already dead when the movie starts. Also, there is the minor use of a title that I first encountered whilst reading Robin Hobb's absolutely wonderful 'Liveship Traders' trilogy, the title being that of 'Satrap'. It's just a small detail I took note of as I was going through 'Lives', I thought the title was merely a product of Hobb's impressive creativity. If you enjoy fantasy & haven't discovered Robin Hobb, she's one of the most accomplished Fantasy Authors in the industry, period.
I would bring your attention back to the subject of the men whose biographies contain content of a questionable nature. 'Avidius Cassius' has, among his absurd list of grotesquely ludicrous malefactions, been accredited with the quelling of an entire rebellion of the troops under his command by simply strolling out of his tent clad in a loincloth & giving voice to some declaration that only the author of 'Caesars' can commit to a written format in a way that would be at all construed humorous, which is why I will refrain from doing so here. I think 'Avidius Cassius' would have been the perfect general for the Caligulan era. The British tribes would have taken one look at the Roman buffoon leading the invasion of Britannia & they'd have built a wall of their own, to keep the Romans OUT.
'Claudius Albinus' was apparently able to eat such an enormous amount of fruit that it defied normal human limits. In one sitting, Albinus could consume, "five hundred dried figs, a hundred Campanian peaches, ten Ostian melons, twenty pounds of Labican grapes, a hundred fig-peckers & four hundred oysters." There are also entire letters of correspondence utterly fictitious in nature, & the manner in which the author presents them is hilarious to the point of you have to read it again just to be sure that was what it really said. There are men accredited with serving as consuls when they were four years of age, among many, many other ludicrous statements. Comedy nowadays is a joke, the Romans would put us to shame with the stuff they came up with.
So, in conclusion, I would absolutely say that if you have a dry sense of humor & don't mind the somewhat verbose composition of the writing, 'Lives of the Later Caesars' is a wonderful read. I literally have never laughed harder in the course of reading a book, historical or otherwise. I would recommend a prospective reader to first read 'The Twelve Caesars' by Suetonius to become acclimated with the base writing style that 'Lives of the Later Caesars' seeks to emulate. I wouldn't think that reading Suetonius is absolutely required, but some of the humor might be lost on you without the background knowledge & familiarity with how people wrote back then.
On the surface, the base text comprising 'Lives of the Later Caesars', known in antiquity as the 'Historia Augusta' is a series of seventeen short biographies chronicling the lives of both Roman emperors as well as imperial usurpers & rebels, from the time when Hadrian became the princeps in 117 A.D., all the way up to 222 A.D., which was when (Heliogabalus) Elagabalus was killed & Severus Alexander succeeded him. Thanks to some remarkable reconstruction work by the translator Anthony Birley, also the author of the Roman Imperial Biography 'Marcus Aurelius', there are two contemporary, 100% factual biographies on the emperors Nerva & Trajan, reigning respectively, from 96-98 A.D. & 98-117 A.D., bringing the grand total to nineteen.
'Lives of the Later Caesars' features biographies 'prepared' by a group of six 'authors' that wrote them 'over the years' but thanks to Anthony Birley's very thorough & very informative introduction I learned that it is a widely-believed scholarly hypothesis (which means that it's considered to be the truth) that they were all written by one author, so the 'authors' are all fictitious names for the same person. Unless there were six men throughout history whose writing was possessed of the same farcical, lampoonish sarcasm, this is absolutely true. The statements being made sometimes go beyond being merely farcical in substance, I think 'pasquinade' would be the correct nomenclature. Have you ever had a conversation with someone who was so sarcastic that they don't even need to really "do" anything that people normally do when they're trying to "be" sarcastic? They just make completely normal statements, & you're like, wow, I can't believe it. That's exactly what reading the satirical portion of 'Lives of the Later Caesars' was like for me. Whoever this guy who wrote this was, I would've liked having met him.
After having read Suetonius' 'The Twelve Caesars', I had a fair idea of what to expect when I picked up the 'sequel', 'Lives of the Later Caesars'. What I didn't expect is how utterly hysterical certain portions of this book's 'narrative' truly are. My sense of humor probably is not what most people consider to be typical, but there were parts of this novel that made me laugh so hard I had to put it down for a while. I try to perceive what might have been going through the author's head when they were writing a compilation of this nature.
It's almost like somebody wanted to write a biographical work in the style of 'The Twelve Caesars' that was predominately, truth. The author only wanted to make fun of certain people, so for those specific sections (for which Birley has so kindly inserted annotations so as to alert uneducated laymen such as myself) he does it in a way that's so deftly accomplished it almost seems like he toys with the reader, using jibes & witticisms like some, maestro conducting a ridiculous caricature of a symphony orchestra, with your believing in the nonsense being fed to you only increasing the tempo. The thing is, this ridicule only is implemented for specific people in the narrative, mostly usurpers or imperial pretenders. The actual emperors' biographies are largely factual in nature, with the false statements usually being accidental, & from what I observed, more often than not, it is date-related & of a numeric nature.
The proper scholarly title of 'Lives of the Later Caesars' is 'Augustan History' & technically, it's only one half of a larger extant body of work. The second half is completely fallacious in nature from what Birley's introduction informs us, also, it is NOT part of 'Lives of the Later Caesars'. Before I speak on the humorous parts, I want to talk about the truthful ones. Because there are some really awesome cultural references that maybe people will identify with in the same way I did. Does anyone know about Hadrian's Wall in Great Britain? The emperor Hadrian has a lengthy biography that I had fun reading, albeit there is but one single statement that pertains to Hadrian's Wall, which is the only documented historical proof we have that he was the one who built it.
How about the movie 'Gladiator'? There is a biography of the famous Marcus Aurelius, who Richard Harris is now universally known for having portrayed. And there's a joke that the author never seems to get tired of, regarding the documenting of men using the cognomen 'Antonius' who in reality, never used it. There's a biography of the infamous Commodus, son of Marcus Aurelius, played by Joaquin Phoenix. The REAL Commodus was quite an interesting man, when you get to reading about him. Narcissism proved to be his undoing, however. I'll not spoil it for you, I will say that it's worth reading to see how depraved Commodus actually was. Also there is a brief mentioning of the poor Lucilla, daughter of Aurelius & sister to Commodus, played by Connie Nielsen in 'Gladiator', as well as the father of Spencer Treat Clark's character, who has a biography of his own. In the movie, Lucius Aurelius Varrus was already dead when the movie starts. Also, there is the minor use of a title that I first encountered whilst reading Robin Hobb's absolutely wonderful 'Liveship Traders' trilogy, the title being that of 'Satrap'. It's just a small detail I took note of as I was going through 'Lives', I thought the title was merely a product of Hobb's impressive creativity. If you enjoy fantasy & haven't discovered Robin Hobb, she's one of the most accomplished Fantasy Authors in the industry, period.
I would bring your attention back to the subject of the men whose biographies contain content of a questionable nature. 'Avidius Cassius' has, among his absurd list of grotesquely ludicrous malefactions, been accredited with the quelling of an entire rebellion of the troops under his command by simply strolling out of his tent clad in a loincloth & giving voice to some declaration that only the author of 'Caesars' can commit to a written format in a way that would be at all construed humorous, which is why I will refrain from doing so here. I think 'Avidius Cassius' would have been the perfect general for the Caligulan era. The British tribes would have taken one look at the Roman buffoon leading the invasion of Britannia & they'd have built a wall of their own, to keep the Romans OUT.
'Claudius Albinus' was apparently able to eat such an enormous amount of fruit that it defied normal human limits. In one sitting, Albinus could consume, "five hundred dried figs, a hundred Campanian peaches, ten Ostian melons, twenty pounds of Labican grapes, a hundred fig-peckers & four hundred oysters." There are also entire letters of correspondence utterly fictitious in nature, & the manner in which the author presents them is hilarious to the point of you have to read it again just to be sure that was what it really said. There are men accredited with serving as consuls when they were four years of age, among many, many other ludicrous statements. Comedy nowadays is a joke, the Romans would put us to shame with the stuff they came up with.
So, in conclusion, I would absolutely say that if you have a dry sense of humor & don't mind the somewhat verbose composition of the writing, 'Lives of the Later Caesars' is a wonderful read. I literally have never laughed harder in the course of reading a book, historical or otherwise. I would recommend a prospective reader to first read 'The Twelve Caesars' by Suetonius to become acclimated with the base writing style that 'Lives of the Later Caesars' seeks to emulate. I wouldn't think that reading Suetonius is absolutely required, but some of the humor might be lost on you without the background knowledge & familiarity with how people wrote back then.
August 9, 2021
Great stuff, the bits of Roman history which we never got to do in school.
May 21, 2022
I have a feeling I read this many years ago at a time when I didn't keep a note of non-fiction I read. It hasn't improved.
The first part of the Augustan History (and the second part is apparently worse than the first part) it recounts all the emperors and pretenders from Hadrian to Elagabalus, with Nerva and Trajan added by the translator.
It is noteworthy as providing the only literary evidence that Hadrian built the wall.
That said, the author selected idiosyncratic events of the lives to recount, has a fascination with divination (he was destined to an eminent life as his grandmother's cockerel laid a square egg two days before his birth), and gives as almost as much space to the minor pretenders as the actual emperors. It is also difficult to separate fact from fiction in the biographies.
As a result it is grindingly repetitive and tedious. Avoid.
Not a patch on Suetonius.
The first part of the Augustan History (and the second part is apparently worse than the first part) it recounts all the emperors and pretenders from Hadrian to Elagabalus, with Nerva and Trajan added by the translator.
It is noteworthy as providing the only literary evidence that Hadrian built the wall.
That said, the author selected idiosyncratic events of the lives to recount, has a fascination with divination (he was destined to an eminent life as his grandmother's cockerel laid a square egg two days before his birth), and gives as almost as much space to the minor pretenders as the actual emperors. It is also difficult to separate fact from fiction in the biographies.
As a result it is grindingly repetitive and tedious. Avoid.
Not a patch on Suetonius.
January 11, 2019
Easily missable !!
September 4, 2018
A worthy follow-up to The Twelve Caesars and one in which I choose to believe every word is true.
Pour one out for the #1 GOAT Roman Emperor, Heliogabalus.
Pour one out for the #1 GOAT Roman Emperor, Heliogabalus.
July 28, 2024
THE "AUGUSTAN HISTORY" - BIOGRAPHIES OF THE EMPERORS FROM 117-284 CE
This book is a collection of biographies of the final Roman emperors, supposedly written by six men, but quite possibly a hoax written in the late fourth century. It includes seventeen portraits, as well as the earlier "Lives" of Nerva and Trajan.
About Trajan, they wrote, "It was a fault in him that he was a heavy drinker and also a pederast. But he did not incur censure, for he never committed any wicked deed because of this. He drank all the wine that he wanted and yet remained sober, and in his relations with boys he harmed no one. It is reported that he tempered his wine-bibbing by ordering that his requests for drink should be ignored after long banquets." (Pg. 47)
Hadrian "both honoured and made rich all who professed the arts---although he always goaded them by his questioning... He treated with the greatest friendliness Epictetus and Heliodorus and philosophers and... grammarians, rhetoricians, musicians, geometricians, painters and astrologers... Teachers who appeared to be unfit for their profession he enriched and honoured, and them dismissed from their posts." (Pg. 75)
They record, "when Marcus was weeping for his fosterer who had died, and was being called on by the court servants to refrain from displaying affection, Antoninus' reply was: 'Let him be human, for neither philosophy nor imperial power takes away feelings.'" (Pg. 105)
They state, "Commodus began a life of orgiastic abandonment in the palace, amid banquets and baths: he had three hundred concubines, whom he assembled together for the beauty of their person... equally from the commons and the nobility, by force and by payment." (Pg. 165)
Although not the most "trustworthy" as a historical source, this book is very valuable to any collection of ancient Roman history.
This book is a collection of biographies of the final Roman emperors, supposedly written by six men, but quite possibly a hoax written in the late fourth century. It includes seventeen portraits, as well as the earlier "Lives" of Nerva and Trajan.
About Trajan, they wrote, "It was a fault in him that he was a heavy drinker and also a pederast. But he did not incur censure, for he never committed any wicked deed because of this. He drank all the wine that he wanted and yet remained sober, and in his relations with boys he harmed no one. It is reported that he tempered his wine-bibbing by ordering that his requests for drink should be ignored after long banquets." (Pg. 47)
Hadrian "both honoured and made rich all who professed the arts---although he always goaded them by his questioning... He treated with the greatest friendliness Epictetus and Heliodorus and philosophers and... grammarians, rhetoricians, musicians, geometricians, painters and astrologers... Teachers who appeared to be unfit for their profession he enriched and honoured, and them dismissed from their posts." (Pg. 75)
They record, "when Marcus was weeping for his fosterer who had died, and was being called on by the court servants to refrain from displaying affection, Antoninus' reply was: 'Let him be human, for neither philosophy nor imperial power takes away feelings.'" (Pg. 105)
They state, "Commodus began a life of orgiastic abandonment in the palace, amid banquets and baths: he had three hundred concubines, whom he assembled together for the beauty of their person... equally from the commons and the nobility, by force and by payment." (Pg. 165)
Although not the most "trustworthy" as a historical source, this book is very valuable to any collection of ancient Roman history.
September 23, 2022
A collection of biographies of the Roman emperors from Hadrian to Numerian (117–284).
The work is incomplete in its surviving form; there are no lives for 244–259. It may originally have begun with one of Hadrian’s predecessors, Nerva or Trajan. The name Historia Augusta was invented in 1603 by the great classicist Isaac Casaubon. Its original title is unknown, and its authorship and date of composition are also matters of argument. The names of six authors of the early 4th century are given in the manuscript itself, but most scholars regard these as spurious and believe that the History was written in the late 4th century by a single person. Its point of view is consciously pagan, and the author may have been trying to counteract the growing dominance of Christianity, perhaps influenced by the paganism of the emperor Julian (reigned 361–363).
The first part of the work, from Hadrian to Caracalla, is thought to be based on reliable sources and is of some historical value; the remaining parts are considered to be generally less reliable, since they contain invented official documents and letters and are marred by anachronisms.
The work is incomplete in its surviving form; there are no lives for 244–259. It may originally have begun with one of Hadrian’s predecessors, Nerva or Trajan. The name Historia Augusta was invented in 1603 by the great classicist Isaac Casaubon. Its original title is unknown, and its authorship and date of composition are also matters of argument. The names of six authors of the early 4th century are given in the manuscript itself, but most scholars regard these as spurious and believe that the History was written in the late 4th century by a single person. Its point of view is consciously pagan, and the author may have been trying to counteract the growing dominance of Christianity, perhaps influenced by the paganism of the emperor Julian (reigned 361–363).
The first part of the work, from Hadrian to Caracalla, is thought to be based on reliable sources and is of some historical value; the remaining parts are considered to be generally less reliable, since they contain invented official documents and letters and are marred by anachronisms.
January 1, 2025
On one hand, it's nice that Anthony Birley has taken the time to annotate the hell out of this thing, marking off what's fiction (and sometimes pointing out what really happened), especially when he elaborates on an odd statement in the middle of something completely fake. On the other, he only translated the first half of the MSS this came from.
Where does this book stand? More or less where Birley assumes it's supposed to: as a sequel to Suetonus. It spreads unflattering truths and insane fiction about the dirt of some really depraved guys like Commodus and Elagabalus while heaping praise on nicer people like Marcus Aurelius. He even goes into the usurpers, of which there are more than a few, all of whom meet the same fate. On the whole, it's a fascinating and weird book but one which does a good job at painting Rome's leaders in a period of crisis, both from within and without; the whole time I'm read this, I kept thinking this would have been a killer third season for HBO's Rome. If you liked The Twelve Caesars, you'll like this.
Where does this book stand? More or less where Birley assumes it's supposed to: as a sequel to Suetonus. It spreads unflattering truths and insane fiction about the dirt of some really depraved guys like Commodus and Elagabalus while heaping praise on nicer people like Marcus Aurelius. He even goes into the usurpers, of which there are more than a few, all of whom meet the same fate. On the whole, it's a fascinating and weird book but one which does a good job at painting Rome's leaders in a period of crisis, both from within and without; the whole time I'm read this, I kept thinking this would have been a killer third season for HBO's Rome. If you liked The Twelve Caesars, you'll like this.
December 12, 2021
Brilliant information, much of which cannot be found elsewhere. In light of the previous sentence, I find the editor and translators' footnotes quite insufferable and feel that penguin should consider omitting them from the main body of the text. Every few pages we hear that this or that is entirely fiction or that this or that historian, who is named in the text is entirely bogus. Since when did the editor, Anthony Burley, acquire a time machine, to check all this, and why is his arrogance so monumental that educated guesses suddenly become thundering truths about events eighteen hundreds of years before his birth? And if the Augusta historia is indeed fiction, then the footnotes just ruin the fun of the story! On the plus side, can someone please translate the other half of the text? I am a specialist in ancient texts and am so very curious! Thank you.
May 1, 2022
An interesting and informative read, it was annoying to read at times owing to how much of this is just completely bogus; it lead to me skimming over large parts of it, purposefully, to avoid misinformation. And frankly I found it amusing how many times the author just blatantly gets stuff wrong, fortunately this is amended with the very helpful footnotes, but it was funny how it felt like most of the numbers the author threw out were just completely inaccurate. Other than this it was good, it is a far cry from the twelve caesars, no doubt, but it's still a solid read, especially for those interested in Roman history.
June 27, 2025
Absolutely fascinating. The work of a later period writer trying to emulate Suetonius approach to the first twelve Caesars. Although his historical sources are patchy, as Birley notes, there’s still plenty of historical meat in this to send a shudder down your back. This particular volume covers Hadrian through to Heliogabalus (aka, Elagabalus). I also appreciated Birley’s own addition of Nerva and Trajan in order to span the gap where Suetonius’ work left off.
“As is usual, money assisted one whom innocence could not profit; for he maintained as emperor for some time, although he was a person with all vices”—from the Life of Macrinus.
“As is usual, money assisted one whom innocence could not profit; for he maintained as emperor for some time, although he was a person with all vices”—from the Life of Macrinus.
October 3, 2019
I really enjoyed this book - the translation was good and clear. The notes were helpful, especially in identifying which parts of the text scholars agree are probably true, and which parts are fiction. Worth reading to get an understanding of an otherwise shady period of Roman history.
By the by, the chapter on Elagabalus was the most entertaining for my money - if even a sliver of that is true, he was certainly a colourful character.
By the by, the chapter on Elagabalus was the most entertaining for my money - if even a sliver of that is true, he was certainly a colourful character.
February 3, 2024
The initial few Caesars + Marcus Aerelius receive the level of historical attention and detail that they deserve. After that, the accounts sort of descend into gossip columns, supposedly entirely fictional, about the endless stream of violent, incompetent and lecherous Caesars that follow Commodus. It begins a series of endless Caesar-murder by fed up soldiers. I am shocked the empire lasted so long with such a grim and expensive sideshow constantly taking place.
August 14, 2022
Strange piece of work and, as some reviewers note, isn't it strange that this survived when not all of Livy did. It's heavily fictional, frequently tedious, repetitive, sensational. Over the years I've come across many references to it so when I saw a copy in the Winchester cathedral used bookshop I got it. A curiosity but not to be recommended.
November 30, 2019
Definitely one of the most bizarre books from the ancient world. Everything about it is a puzzle or a mystery and though it's highly fictional in many places, humanity is richer for this book still existing.
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May 14, 2023Although the translator goes on about how it's mostly fictional, actually reading the notes shows that a lot of it probably isn't. The most interesting part is the structure of Senatorial decrees, which read like broadsheets.
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May 29, 2024It’s history.. cant really rate history. But found it interesting. They were all pretty crazy. But idk how I would act when I was one of the most powerful people on the planet, but also was one of the biggest targets for assassinations on the planet.
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August 24, 2021Bizarre and fascinating
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