Ammianus and the Historia Augusta

by Ronald Syme

This classic study builds on the work of Dessau in resssessing the nature of the Historia Augusta, in particular establishing the influence of Ammianus Marcellinus on the work, which Syme argues was the product of a single author writing in at the end of the fourth or start of the fifth century.

Genres: Roman History

237 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1968

About the author

Sir Ronald Syme, OM, FBA (11 March 1903 – 4 September 1989) was a New Zealand-born historian and classicist. Long associated with Oxford University, he is widely regarded as the 20th century's greatest historian of ancient Rome. His great work was The Roman Revolution (1939), a masterly and controversial analysis of Roman political life in the period following the assassination of Julius Caesar.