The Historians' History of the World 06

Ammianus Marcellinus, by birth a Syrian Greek, served many years in the imperial bodyguards. His history covered a period of 282 years, from the accession of Nerva, 96 A.D., to the death of Valens, 378 A.D. Of its thirty-one books the last eighteen have been preserved. These include the transactions of twenty-five years only, but they are valuable as a source because of the author’s conscientious effort to be truthful and of his first-hand knowledge of the events he describes.

Anastasius, see Liber Pontificalis.—Annales Alamannici (741-779), founded on Annales Mosellani.—Annales S. Amandi (708-810), founded on Annales Mosellani.—Annales Fuldenses, records of the monastery of Fulda.—

Annales Guelferbytani, or Wolfenbüttel Codex (741-805), founded on Annales Mosellani.—Annales Laurissenses or Laureshamenses (741-829), composed at Lorsch.—Annales Maximiani (710-811), founded on Annales Mosellani.—Annales Mettenses, composed at Metz or Laon about the end of the tenth century.—Annales Mosellani

(703-797), composed at the monastery of St. Martin in Cologne.—Annales Nazariani (741-790), founded on Annales Mosellani.—Annales Petaviani (708-799), founded on Annales Mosellani; original from 717-799.

The foregoing annals of the German monasteries possess varying historical value. They have all been edited by Pertz, in Monumenta Germaniæ Historica, Hanover, 1819, in progress.

Appianus Alexandrinus, Πωμαϊκὴ ἱστορία, edited by Schweighauser, Leipsic, 1785, 3 vols.; translated from the Greek by J. D(ancer),“The History of Appian of Alexandria,” London, 1679. (See Introduction, vol. V.)—Apuleius, Lucius, Metamorphoseon seu de Asino Aureo Libri XI, edited by Andrew, bishop of Aleria, Rome, 1469; translated from the Latin by Thomas Tylor, London, 1822; and by Sir G. Head, The Metamorphoses of Apuleius, London, 1851.—

Augustan History, Historiæ Augustæ Scriptores (Ælius Spartianus, Julius Capitolinus, Ælius Lampridius, Vulcatius Gallicanus, Trebellius Pollio and Flavius Vopiscus), Milan, 1475; Venice, 1489; edited by Casarabon, Paris, 1603; by Salmasius, Paris, 1620; by Schrevelius, Leyden, 1671; by Jordan and Eyssenhardt, Berlin, 1863. (See also Dirksen, Paucker and Plew.)

Augustan History is the title given to a series of biographies of the Roman emperors from Hadrian to Carinus, ostensibly written by the six authors above mentioned in the time of Diocletian and Constantine. The most recent research tends to show that the collection, at least, in the form in which we have it, is a compilation of the end of the fourth or beginning of the fifth century and that the authors’ names formerly attached to it are entirely fictitious. The authenticity of the official documents contained in it is also questioned. It is, nevertheless, an important, for many facts almost the only, source of our knowledge of imperial Rome.

Augustine, Saint, De Civitate Dei, Paris, 1679-1700: reprint, 1836-1838. Edited by Strange, Cologne, 1850-1851, 2 vols.; by Dombart, Leipsic, 1877.

Cæsar, Caius Julius, Commentarii de bello Gallico; Commentarii de bello civili, Rome, 1440; edited by Jungerman, Frankfort, 1606; by C. E. Moberly, with English notes, 1871-1872; 1877; 1882 (translated by Edmunds); Cæsar’s Commentaries, on the Gallic and Civil Wars, London, 1609 (translated by W. H. McDevitte and W. S. Bohn, London, 1857).

Julius Cæsar

, who shares with Alexander and Napoleon the honours of unapproachable military genius, was born on July 12th, B.C. 100, or according to Mommsen, in B.C. 102. His merits and demerits as a soldier and statesman have been fully dealt with in volume V. Here note need only be taken of his celebrated writings—the Commentaries—which relate the history of the first seven years of the Gallic War, and the progress of the Civil War up to the Alexandrine, and the main object of which was the justification of the author’s course in war and in politics. The opening words of De bello Gallico are often noted as a model of literary perspicuity, and throughout the whole work there is a rigorous exclusion of every expression for the use of which no standard authority could be found. It is the utterance of a man who, knowing precisely what he means to say, says it with directness and lucidity. The Commentaries may indeed be regarded as a kind of high-class classical journalism, written down, as we have reason to assume, from day to day from the dictation of the chief actor in the events narrated.

Capitolinus, Julius, see Augustan History.—Cassiodorus, Senator Magnus Aurelius, Variarum (Epistolarum) Libri XII; Libri XII De Rebus Gestis Gothorum, Augsburg, 1533; Paris, 1584; Rouen, 1679, 2 vols.