Download or read book Historia Augusta Papers written by Ronald Syme and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1983 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together fifteen studies written since 1972 on the notorious Historia Augusta. Syme advances the theory, supported by computer evidence, that the papers are the work of only one person, rather than six as they purport, and that they were written considerably later than the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine. He argues that, taken as a whole, the papers are a work of "fictional history" and constitute an elaborate and erudite hoax.