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Further Observations on the Dating of Enmann's Kaisergeschichte

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Extract

The significance of the dating of Enmann's Kaisergeschichte in the controversy which has long surrounded the Historia Augusta is common knowledge to all scholars who have more than a nodding acquaintance with the period. Enmann himself concluded that the KG ended with or shortly after Diocletian's accession. This was a necessary hypothesis for Enmann in 1884 because the H.A. had clearly used the KG and the self-proclaimed authorship and dating of the former were generally accepted. None the less in Enmann's opinion the resemblances between Victor and Eutropius continued into the sole reign of Constantius II down to the Battle of Strasbourg in 357 and Enmann was compelled to ascribe this to a ‘continuation’ of the KG.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1973

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References

page 375 note 1 Enmann, A., ‘Eine verlorene Geschichte der römischen Kaiser’, Philologus Suppl. iv (1884), 432 For his acceptance of the ostensible dating of the KG see pp. 339–40.Google Scholar

page 375 note 2 Dessau, H., ‘Über Zeit und Persönlichkeit der S.H.A.’, Hermes xxiv (1889), 337. ff.Google Scholar

page 375 note 3 Sir Syme, R., ‘The Son of the Emperor Macrinus’, Phoenix xxvi (1972), 279.Google Scholar He had previously declared similar views in his Emperors and Biography: Studies in the Historia Augusta (Oxford, 1971), p. 222,Google Scholar but cf. Ammianus and the Historia Augusta (Oxford, 1968), p. 106.Google Scholar

page 375 note 4 Barnes, T. D., ‘The Lost Kaisergeschichte and the Latin Historical Tradition’, B.H.A.C. 1968 69 (1970), pp. 1343; esp. p. 20. Barnes points out that Seeck had long since concluded that the KG (or Kaiserchronik as he called it) ended with the death of Constantine. Syme's esteem for Barnes is expressed in his Emperors and Biography, p. vii.Google Scholar

page 375 note 5 Op. cit., p.

page 376 note 1 Syme, Ammianus, pp. 104–5.

page 376 note 2 The anonymous epitomator (Epit. 19. 1) gives the same description but is clearly not using Victor or Eutropius here.

page 376 note 3 For further examples of amplificatio see De Caes. 32.5; cf. Eutrop. 9. 7; Epit. 32. 5: De Caes. 35. 8; cf. Eutrop. 9. 15; Epit. 35. 8: De Caes. 36. 1–2; cf. Eutrop. 9. 16; Epit. 36. 1: De Caes. 39. 13; cf. Eutrop. g. 20.

page 376 note 4 De Caes. 42. 20.

page 376 note 5 Eutrop. 10. 12; 10. 14–15.

page 376 note 6 De Caes. 42. 24–5.

page 376 note 7 Victor exhibits a preference for the term litterae (De Caes. 8. 7; 10. 1; 16. 9; 20. 28; 25. 1; 41. 26; 42. 23). He uses artes liberates only once, in describing his fellow countryman Septimius Severus (De Caes. 20. 22).

page 377 note 1 Cf. Eutrop. to. 14; Ammianus, 16. 12. 63; Hohl, E., ‘Vopiscus and die Biographic des Kaisers Tacitus’, Klio xi (1911), 227 ff.Google Scholar

page 377 note 2 Barnes, op. cit., p. 21.