jakejonesiv

That is an interesting claim. How do you know what the lost potions of Tacitus contained?

Jake Jones IV

GakuseiDon

What other explanation can there be??? (PS I suggest reading through the thread to get "the context" before responding! )

Roger Pearse

It's fairly easy to see which reigns of emperors are covered in the missing parts by what is present in the extant portions. A study of the fragments confirms this. T.D.Barnes did a paper on these some years ago which I read recently but isn't to hand.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

mountainman

Ammianus' history purportedly covered the period of Roman
history from 92 CE to the end of the fourth century, and most
commentators agree was written after 390 CE. That's alot of
imperial masters for you to single out Julian, who briefly ruled
361-363 CE, and died younger (31) than the fictitious Jesus.



Pete

mountainman

What was contained in the lost portions of Julian's invectives against
the Galilaeans that could not in all conscience be treated by Cyril due
to the contaminatory nature of the material upon christian minds. Did
Julian treat the TF in Josephus, and bring charges of fraud against
these "wicked men", did he treat the misrepresentation and perversion
of the works or Origen, did he treat Constantine as the fiction maker?

And what was contained in the earlier 13 books of Ammianus, which tell
the history for the period 92 CE to c. 350 CE? Would Ammianus for
example have failed to mention the appearance of christianity in the empire
until the reign of Constantine? Is that why his histories, only after
Constantine's reign, are the surviving books?



Pete Brown

Bede

Exactly. Despite Julian's brief reign, almost a third of the surviving books of AM are about him. He is probably the best documented Emperor of the 4th century (except that AM made most of it up).

Actually, the first part of his history largely survives, although bits are missing and other parts adapted. It goes by the name of the Historia Augusta and is universally acknowledged to be fraudulent and inaccurate history. AM's authorship is obvious once we realise that his Res Gestae has exactly the same characteristics. Besides, there are many points in the text that are characteristically Marcellinian.

Gamera

Well said. Mountainman seems to think that everybody in history had an agenda except Julian. If any body had an agenda it was that man. He had a Jones for trying to falsify the religion that caused his pagan family and his pagan values so much harm.

mountainman

AM is usually regarded as a trustworthy historian by most sources.
What makes you think he made anything up in the Res Gestae?


Bede's thesis: AM writes the Historia Augusta.
Are there any precedents for this belief?

Bede, why dont you write these ideas up as a thesis concerning
the genre of the Historia Augusta, and how you think AM is the author.

I'd be backing Eusebius of Caesarea as the editor of a number of authors,
because the style and the chaotic nature of the fiction and facts is quite
similar to his own Ecclesiatical History.

Academics such as Syme would totally disagree with your opinion,
and would clearly state that Ammianus Marcillenus was certainly
not the author of Historia Augusta ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historia_Augusta

Syme argued that it was a mistake to regard it as a historical work at all
and that no clear propaganda purpose could be determined. In his view
the History is primarily a literary product – an exercise in historical fiction
(or ‘fictional history’) produced by a ‘rogue scholiast’ catering to (and
making fun of) the antiquarian tendencies of the Theodosian age, in which
Suetonius and Marius Maximus were fashionable reading and Ammianus
Marcellinus was producing sober history in the manner of Tacitus.

It is more likely that Constantine sponsored the perversion of history
and the fabrication of the Historia Augusta in order to make chaotic
the record of history in which his "tribe of christians" were supposed
to have had existence in the pre-Nicaean epoch.

IMO much true and accurate history was deleted because of the singular
lack of any references whatsoever to the existence of christianity in
the pre-Nicaean epoch.




Pete

mountainman

You, and others in this forum ought to learn to speak with respect
when you speak about what you call the pagans, which after all is
just a name given to the Hellenic traditions embraced by the Roman
empire centuries and centuries prior to the rise of christianity.

Essentially, the Hellenic culture was the indigenous culture and
religious order of the empire. It is our thesis that Constantine
grafted a new and strange religion to the empire in the fourth
century, a Roman religion in which he saw himself as "the Bishop
of all Bishops", and by which he succeeded in commencing a total
plunder of the Hellenic culture, temples, lands, shrines, gold and
treasure.

Pagan is a thoughtless and exclusionary christian word.
IMO Hellenic is the more appropriate and universal term.




Pete Brown

Bede

Palaeography is regarded as trustworthy by most sources and yet you completely reject it.

Academics would also disagree about your opinion. So what?

No, it is far more likely that Julian obliterated the evidence for his own ends. After all, he came after Constantine and so could easily have changed the record.