Written sources for the Third Century

[guy]

Here is a good article on literature sources for the poorly documented and turbulent Third Century.

 

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For the events of this time, then, we are almost exclusively reliant (as far as the earliest extant histories go) on the aforementioned Historia Augusta – with its obvious problems – and the Historia Abbreviata and Libellus Breuiatus of Sextus Aurelius Victor – which are, in fact, later epitomes of a lost, full-length archetype. Moreover, these sources are a hundred years or more removed from the events of the Crisis. This, of course, does not exclude their reliability, seeing as Aurelius Victor certainly had access to Dexippus’ history (and, thereby, so did the Historia Augusta). But later sources can be clouded by their own contemporary concerns and source problems of their own, often making it difficult to distinguish historical fact from moralistic elaboration and fictionalization.

Flickering Light in Rome’s 'Little Dark Age': Towards a Literature of the 3rd Century – Antigone

Edited 7 hours ago by guy