Lives of the Later Caesars

This ancient collection of imperial biographies, known as the Historia Augusta and written in late antiquity, presents lives of Roman emperors and usurpers from the second and third centuries, here running from Nerva and Trajan as a prelude through Hadrian, the Antonines, Commodus, the Severans, and on toward Carus and his sons. The sketches mix campaign and court narrative with gossip, invented letters, and catalogues of dress and vice. Figures such as Marcus Aurelius, Heliogabalus, and a crowd of short-lived barracks emperors appear. Authorship is uncertain and parts are unreliable as fact. The work is a sequel-like gallery of Caesars, not a single reign's history.

Bound in full dark grey leather with a design in silver and copper. Grey slipcase.