A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

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322 Introduction to the Sources
III
h
I'
Ammianus
Marcellinus,
about 330-
401 A.D.
Res Gestce.
Macrobius.
Christian
Writers.
Lactantius,
about 260-
330 A.D.
Augustus to Cons tan tius; Life and Character of the Roman
Emperors, from Augustus to Theodosius. It is probable,
however, that all these works are not by the same hand.
The six authors of the Augustan History—the lives of the
emperors from Hadrian to Numerianus, 117-284 A.D.
wrote under Diocletian and Constantine,
and dedicated
their biographies to the one or the other of these emperors.
Spartianus was the author of the life of Hadrian;
and Capitolinus of the lives of Antoninus Pius and Marcus
Aurelius.
This work, however devoid of literary merit, is
a highly important source.
An author of incomparably greater historical insight
and judgment was Ammianus Marcellinus, a Greek of
Antioch, Syria.
Born in the reign of Constantine, he entered
the army at an early age and attained to high commands
in a long and honorable career. Late in life he
wrote in Latin a history of the emperors' Achievements
from Nerva to Valens in thirty-one books.
only books XIV-XXXI.
There remain
His attention to personal and
racial character, customs and social conditions makes his
work unusually interesting and instructive. He was the
last distinguished historian of Rome. Approximately to
the date of his death belongs the Saturnalia of Macrobius,
a dialogue of learned men on literary questions, religion,
and various customs of earlier Rome. This work should
be classed with the Attic Nights of Gellius.
Among the Christian writers of ancient times the first
in order are the authors of the books of the New Testament.
Then follow a succession of "Christian Fathers,"
who interpreted and expanded the doctrines of the Church.
Of this class the earliest author represented in the present
volume is Lactantius, a contemporary of Diocletian and
Constantine. A rhetorician of fine literary taste, he was