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New Light on the Historia Augusta

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 October 2020

Justin Stover
Justin Stover*
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

This paper presents a new manuscript of part of the Historia Augusta from Erlangen, which vindicates a more than century-old hypothesis by E. Patzig: that the 1489 Venice edition of the work is textually valuable. On this basis, and building on the recent work of R. Modonutti, I present five new passages that are not printed in modern editions of the HA, six lacunose passages restored, and propose that the lost Murbach manuscript is the source. Armed with this new evidence, I re-examine the question of the great lacuna between the Lives of Maximus and Balbinus and the Lives of the Two Valerians, showing that it is a codicological — and not authorial — feature.

Keywords

Historia Augustamanuscriptstextual criticismeditingLate Antiquity
Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 110 , November 2020 , pp. 167 - 198
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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Footnotes

I would like to thank George Woudhuysen and Gavin Kelly for many hours of conversation on the HA and insights at many points. In addition, participants in the Historia Augusta colloquium at Edinburgh in May 2019 — especially, besides the above, Rino Modonutti, Michael Allen and Michael Kulikowski — provided very helpful discussion and critique, as did the participants in the transmissions panel at the 11th Celtic Conference in Classics in St Andrews in 2018. It was a suggestion of Michael Reeve that first put me on the track of Colonna and the Mare historiarum. I am also very grateful to Lukas Dorfbauer, who provided insightful critique and generously provided an advance copy of his forthcoming publication. The Editor and JRS readers also offered substantial assistance. This is not to imply any of them endorse the views advanced here.

References

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