Augustan History - Historical Value

Historical Value

More than a century of criticism, argument and counter-argument have argued that the Augustan History is not a reliable source for the period that it purports to cover, and it is especially unreliable in that era for which it is one of the very few written sources, the years 253–284.

Inextricably entangled in its fictions and jokes, however – and especially in the earlier biographies – is a wealth of genuine historical information of which it is often the sole transmitter. For example, it is the sole ancient authority for the construction of the Antonine Wall in Scotland during the reign of Antoninus Pius.

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