Criticism of The Current Orthodox View
It is worth considering that not all scholars have accepted the theory of a forger working around the last decades of the 4th century or beginning of the fifth. Arnaldo Momigliano and A.H.M. Jones were the most prominent critics of the Dessau-Syme theory amongst English-speaking scholars during the 20th century. Momigliano, summarizing literature from Dessau down to 1954, defined the question as “res iudicanda” and not as “res iudicata”. Momigliano reviewed every book published on the topic by Sir Ronald Syme, and was able to provide counter arguments to most if not all of Syme’s arguments. Recently Alan Cameron has been able to demolish a number of Syme's and Barnes' arguments for a composition date c.395-400, suggesting a composition date between 361 to the 380s.
Read more about this topic: Augustan History
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