no notion of arrangement, no measure of proportion, and no criterion of discrimination between the important and the trivial; they are equally destitute of critical and of historical insight, unable to sift the authorities on which they rely, and unsuspicious of the stupendous social revolution comprised within the period which they undertake to describe. Their value, consequently, depends very much on that of the sources to which they happen to have recourse for any given period of history, and on the fidelity of their adherence to these when valuable. Marius Maximus and Aelius Junius Cordus, to whose qualifications they themselves bear no favourable testimony, were their chief authorities for the earlier lives of the series. Marius Maximus, who lived about 165–230, wrote biographies of the emperors, in continuation of those of Suetonius, from Nerva to Elagabalus; Junius Cordus dealt with the less-known emperors, perhaps down to Maximus and Balbinus. The earlier lives, however, contain a substratum of authentic historical fact, which recent critics have supposed to be derived from a lost work by a contemporary writer, described by one of these scholars as “the last great Roman historian.” For the later lives the Scriptores were obliged to resort more largely to public records, and thus preserved matter of the highest importance, rescuing from oblivion many imperial rescripts and senatorial decrees, reports of official proceedings and speeches on public occasions, and a number of interesting and characteristic letters from various emperors. Their incidental allusions sometimes cast vivid though undesigned light on the circumstances of the age, and they have made large contributions to our knowledge of imperial jurisprudence in particular. Even their trivialities have their use; their endless anecdotes respecting the personal habits of the subjects of their biographies, if valueless to the historian, are most acceptable to the archaeologist, and not unimportant to the economist and moralist. Their errors and deficiencies may in part be ascribed to the contemporary neglect of history as a branch of instruction. Education was in the hands of rhetoricians and grammarians; historians were read for their style, not for their matter, and since the days of Tacitus, none had arisen worth a schoolmaster’s notice. We thus find Vopiscus acknowledging that when he began to write the life of Aurelian, he was entirely misinformed respecting the latter’s competitor Firmus, and implying that he would not have ventured on Aurelian himself if he had not had access to the MS. of the emperor’s own diary in the Ulpian library. The writers’ historical estimates are superficial and conventional, but report the verdict of public opinion with substantial accuracy. The only imputation on the integrity of any of them lies against Trebellius Pollio, who, addressing his work to a descendant of Claudius, the successor and probably the assassin of Gallienus, has dwelt upon the latter versatile sovereign’s carelessness and extravagance without acknowledgment of the elastic though fitful energy he so frequently displayed in defence of the empire. The caution of Vopiscus’s references to Diocletian cannot be made a reproach to him.
No biographical particulars are recorded respecting any of these writers. From their acquaintance with Latin and Greek literature they must have been men of letters by profession, and very probably secretaries or librarians to persons of distinction. There seems no reason to accept Gibbon’s contemptuous estimate of their social position. They appear particularly versed in law. Spartianus’s reference to himself as “Diocletian’s own” seems to indicate that he was a domestic in the imperial household. They address their patrons with deference, acknowledging their own deficiencies, and seem painfully conscious of the profession of literature having fallen upon evil days.
Editio princeps (Milan, 1475); Casaubon (1603) showed great critical ability in his notes, but for want of a good MS. left the restoration of the text to Salmasius (1620), whose notes are a most remarkable monument of erudition, combined with acuteness in verbal criticism and general vigour of intellect. Of recent years considerable attention has been devoted by German scholars to the History, especially by Peter, whose edition of the text in the Teubner series (2nd ed., 1884) contains (praef. xxxv.-xxxvii.) a bibliography of works on the subject preceding the publication of his own special treatise. The edition by Jordan-Eyssenhardt (1863) should also be mentioned. Amongst the most recent treatises on the subject are: A. Gemoll, Die Scriptores Historiae Augustae (1886); H. Peter, Die Scriptores Historiae Augustae (1892); G. Tropea, Studi sugli Scriptores Historiae Augustae (1899–1903); J. M. Heer, Der historische Wert der Vita Commodi in der Sammlung der Scriptores Historiae Augustae (1901); C. Lécrivain, Études sur l’histoire Auguste (1904); E. Kornemann, Kaiser Hadrian und der letzte grosse Historiker von Rom (1905), according to whom “the last great historian of Rome” is Lollius Urbicus; O. Schulz, Das Kaiserhaus der Antonine und der letzte Historiker Roms (1907). On their style, see C. Paucker, De Latinitate Scriptorum Historiae Augustae (1870); special lexicon by C. Lessing (1901–1906). An English translation is included in The Lives of the Roman Emperors, by John Bernard (1698). See further Rome: History (anc. ad fin.), section “Authorities”; M. Schanz, Geschichte der römischen Litteratur, iii. p. 69 (for Marius Maximus and Junius Cordus), iv. p. 47; Teuffel-Schwabe, Hist. of Roman Literature (Eng. tr.), § 392; H. Peter, bibliography from 1893 to 1905 in Bursian’s Jahresbericht, cxxix. (1907).
AUGUSTA PRAETORIA SALASSORUM (mod. Aosta, q.v.), an ancient town of Italy in the district of the Salassi, founded by Augustus about 24 B.C. on the site of the camp of Varro Murena, who subdued this tribe in 25 B.C., and settled with 3000 praetorians. Pliny calls it the last town of Italy on the north-west, and its position at the confluence of two rivers, at the end of the Great and Little St Bernard, gave it considerable military importance, which is vouched for by considerable remains of Roman buildings. The ancient town walls, enclosing a rectangle 793 by 624 yds., are still preserved almost in their entire extent. The walls are 21 ft. high. They are built of concrete faced with small blocks of stone, and at the bottom are nearly 9 ft. thick, and at the top 6 ft. There are towers at the angles of the enceinte, and others at intervals, and two at each of the four gates, making a total of twenty towers altogether. They are roughly 32 ft. square, and project 14 ft. from the wall. The Torre del Pailleron on the south and the Torre del Leproso in the west are especially well preserved. The east and south gates exist (the latter, a double gate with three arches flanked by two towers, is the Porta Praetoria, and is especially fine), while the rectangular arrangement of the streets perpetuates the Roman plan, dividing the town into 16 blocks (insulae). The main road, 32 ft. wide, divides the city into two equal halves, running from east to west, an arrangement which makes it clear that the guarding of the road was the main raison d’être of the city. Some arcades of the amphitheatre (the diameters of which are 282 ft. and 239 ft.), and the south wall of the theatre are also preserved, the latter to a height of over 70 ft., and a market-place some 300 ft. square, surrounded by storehouses on three sides with a temple in the centre, and two on the open (south) side, and the thermae, have been discovered. Outside the town is a handsome triumphal arch in honour of Augustus. About 5 m. to the west is a single-arched Roman bridge, the Pondel, which has a closed passage lighted by windows for foot passengers in winter, and above it an open footpath, both being about 3½ ft. in width. There are considerable remains of the ancient road from Eporedia (mod. Ivrea) to Augusta Praetoria, up the Valle d’ Aosta, which the modern railway follows, notably the Pont St Martin, with a single arch with a span of 116 ft. and a roadway 15 ft. wide, the cutting of Donnaz, and the Roman bridges of Châtillon (Pont St Vincent) and Aosta (Pont de Pierre), &c.
See C. Promis, Le antichità di Aosta (Turin, 1862); E. Bérard in Atti della Società di Archeologia di Torino, iii. 119 seq.; Notizie degli Scavi, passim; A. d’Andrade, Relazione dell’ Ufficio Regionale per la conservazione dei Monumenti del Piemonte e della Liguria (Turin, 1899), 46 seq. (T. As.)
AUGUSTI, JOHANN CHRISTIAN WILHELM (1772–1841), German theologian, born at Eschenberga, near Gotha, was of Jewish descent, his grandfather having been a converted rabbi. He was educated at the gymnasium at Gotha and the university of Jena. At Jena he studied oriental languages, of which he became professor there in 1803. Subsequently he became ordinary professor of theology (1812), and for a time rector, at Breslau. In 1819 he was transferred to the university of Bonn, where he was made professor primarius. In 1828 he was appointed chief member of the consistorial council at Coblenz. Here he was afterwards made director of the consistory. He died at Coblenz in 1841. Augusti had little sympathy with the modern philosophical interpretations of dogma, and although
