About This Book
A critical study reevaluates the lurid portrait given by late ancient biographers of a young emperor of Imperial Rome by testing the trustworthiness of the surviving sources, especially Lampridius and the Scriptores Historiae Augustae. The author separates bias and contradiction, argues that the ruler pursued a deliberate religious program aimed at unifying cults, and questions claims of administrative and military collapse. Attention is given to fiscal and legal measures, and the book closes with three essays analyzing the principal figures who shaped the emperor's psychological and political world.
About the Author
You May Also Like
6 picks
"De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries
by Julius Caesar
A Beginner's History of Philosophy, Vol. 1: Ancient and Mediæval Philosophy
by Herbert Ernest Cushman
A Brief History of Element Discovery, Synthesis, and Analysis
by Glen W. Watson
A Burial Cave in Baja California / The Palmer Collection, 1887
by William C. Massey
A century of excavation in the land of the Pharaohs
by James Baikie
A classical dictionary / containing a copious account of all the proper names mentioned in ancient authors with tables of coins, weights, and measures used among the Greeks and Romans and a chronological table
by John Lemprière