The biography of the Roman emperor Alexander Severus (or should he rather be called Severus Alexander?, see p. 26) is of crucial importance in the construction of the Historia Augusta (HA), the still anonymous series of imperial biographies of rulers, co-rulers and pretendants in the Roman empire from Hadrian up to (but not including) Diocletian. The vita Alexandri Severi is the eighteenth in the series of thirty books, and is closely connected to the vita of Elagabalus, Alexander being represented as an enlightened and glorified ruler against the dark prince who was his cousin and predecessor, both being the last two representants of the dynasty that dated back to the ascension of Septimius Severus (193 CE).
André Heller has written a most welcome commentary on this important vita in the Antiquitas-Reihe 4-series of Habelt Verlag, the first volume of which appeared in 1991 (A. Lippold, on the vita Maximinorum duo). As is traditional in the series, the voluminous book consists of an introduction (pp. 1-107), preceded by a part with bibliographical abbreviations, and a Kommentarteil (pp. 107-552, in which the various comments are numbered up to K559 for easy cross-referencing), followed by an Index locorum. Also traditional is the broad scope in which the information has been presented, with plenty of references to other parts of the series (after the lengthy and exhaustive expositions about the fruits of HA-research in the past century), the sources used and past scholarship. There is, in fact, not much to be desired besides what Heller presents in an exemplary discussion of the vita, apart from what any reader would have preferred according to his own tastes. For text-editions, translations (which the Reihe 4-series does not provide) with commentaries, the French Budé series is still superior.[1]
What, then, makes this vita so important? At least two important elements stand out. First of all, the presentation of Alexander Severus as an exemplary prince, resulting in what has been analysed as a Fürstenspiegel, a mirror of princes,[2] for which two motives can be adduced: to maximize the contrast with the worst of rulers, Elagabalus (in a rhetorical scheme throughout the whole HA by which ‘good’ and ‘bad’ rulers are opposed to one another; on p. 104 Heller calls Elagabalus his “antipode”); and by lack of proper sources, by which a surplus of invention takes over, styled Quellenarmut by Heller (p.6). After all, the more trustworthy sources on which the author of the HA could rely had halted somewhere in the course of the narration about Elagabalus’ reign. The character of Fürstenspiegel is related by Heller (p.16) to the HA’s possible time of origin around the reign of the child-emperor Honorius (395-423), when the reign of young rulers was susceptible to glorification (Alexander ascended the throne around his twelfth year). The ‘mirror of princes’ acquires an orientalist dimension when it is questioned how an emperor of Syrian descent can be such a good ruler; in the later chapters of the vita (c. 65, c. 68), on which the author’s answer (actually directed at the imaginary addressee Constantine the Great) is that nature makes men either good or bad, and, secondly, that good advisers can make or break a good prince. Hence the enormous importance of the consilium principis, or the amici principis, which forms an important theme throughout the biography (notably c. 43).
The possible dating of the HA is placed between 360/1 and 525 CE (p.10-11), but it is far from Heller’s scope to provide final evidence (he safely places the work ‘um 400’, p. 14), but rather to give an accurate description of discussion in scholarly history. It has been rightly observed by Heller (p.54) that Cicero served as an important model in the language of the vita, especially as a specimen of rhetorical composition. If Heller tends towards pinpointing a cultural background of the still unknown author, he would place him in the environment of the Gaulish rhetorical schools, although certainty cannot be obtained here either (p.21-3). Looking at the content of AS, Gaul may not be described in the most positive terms, such as becomes clear in the passage where Alexander Severus’ murder is described (AS 59.5, K484), where the Gauls are depicted as harsh and gloomy (and the emperor as all too severe, recalling his cognomen, which caused his death).
The second important element is the position of the vita Alexandri Severi within the entire HA. It has been postulated more than once that the author of HA may once have started the work with this particular vita (given the possible existence of earlier imperial biographies ending with Elagabalus) making it of prime importance for the author’s scope: possibly, his goal was to supply other imperial series with a continuation, only later adding earlier biographies based on better sources to the series. There are some indications for a genesis like this, which Heller mentions but does not fully adhere to (p.28-9). Nor does Heller fully point out the importance of the nomen Antoninorum-theme in the HA, viz. the emperors who styled themselves with the name of Antoninus, of which some seven passages are to be observed in the earlier parts of the vita. The source of this theme is certainly Aurelius Victor Caesares 22.1-2, not Marius Maximus as Heller supposes (p.114). Another issue in the composition of the HA is the lack of biographies of the emperors between Philippus Arabs and Valerian, causing a lacuna in the narration, about which Heller is unsure whether it be a conscious omission or codicological accident, thus declaring it insoluble. However, it was Justin Stover, who in 2020,[3] proved beyond doubt that it is an accidental loss, for which there is a codicological explanation. About the lack of an introduction, and the expected inclusion of the lives of Nerva and Trajan (which are also lacking at the beginning of the HA), Heller states that they ‘must have been described’, showing less uncertainty about what is, in my opinion, far from sure thing.
Heller conscientiously attempts to pinpoint the sources of factual information in the biography. Just as his predecessors in Reihe 4 had done, the commentaries on individual capita start with an overview of parallel texts, thus placing the research on the work solidly in a tradition of German Quellenforschung. The abundance and acerbity by which this is done can only be welcomed by any classical philologist or historian. It might come with a lessened attention for stylistic phenomena, such as the extreme use of et … et (or ac) or aut … aut, vel… vel or neque … neque in all variations in this particular biography, which might betray the influence of Cicero’s theoretical works. When it comes to sources, something similar may be observed in the use of alii … alii…, which may, linguistically, well denote two individual sources (while Heller seems to assume that with alii more authors are at stake, see e.g. p.495: ‘Einer der alii…’). But here we land in very minor details, concerning the use of sources about which the discussion is still ongoing, and even reviving. Amidst a host of fictitious and unknown sources, Heller is confident in assuming that Marius Maximus was an existing source, used by the author of HA (see pp. 36, 65, or 422). Other more literary elements get less attention than the factual source value. On p.423 (K389) the otherwise unknown and probably fictitious author Acholius (whose name may be derived from the bishop in Ambrose’s letters 15 and 16 from 383 CE)[4] should change place with Encolpius, all appearing twice in the biography (Encolpius occurs in 17.1 and 48.7)—again, a minor lapse.
A few more quibbles: it was not Casaubon in 1603 who gave the Historia Augusta the name under which the collection of biographies entered modern history, but Sylburg in 1566. At times, information in this commentary is repeated all too often, such as the time of origin (Entstehungszeit, p. 4 and 9), or the Christian sympathies of Alexander’s mother on pp. 78 and 83, with differing references to ancient literature (and, obviously, again in the commentary K 165). And, yes, on p. 32, Heller bypasses Herodian as a source for a freedman called Festus, whom the author of HA might have confused with the one mentioned by Cassius Dio in 79.43.4[5]. Some authors quoted in the commentary, do not recur in the bibliography.
The Alexander Severus biography in HA is a long and rich work with an appealing subject: the last of the dynasty of the Severans that started with Septimius Severus, whom the author may have had in mind from time to time (for example, when he places Alexander Severus’ death in Britain, while it obviously happened in Gaul, see above ad K484). Another namesake that has informed the description (possibly by a Greek Alexander novel translated into Latin, see p. 57), arguably according to historical veracity, is Alexander the Great, whose imitatio took firm grip on Alexander Severus’ behavior. They both died young; while Alexander Severus ascended the throne when he was about twelve, he died in his mid-twenties, even at a younger age than his idol. Alexander Severus’s birthday is said to have fallen on the same date as his namesake’s death (Heller p. 70, repeated on p. 96). A preference that Alexander Severus appears to have shared with his predecessor Trajan (p.107), all three being representations of rulers with strategic skills, which constituted the ideal of later Roman emperorship.
The Reihe 4-series (which also includes 21 Bonner Historia Augusta Colloquia up to 1989, after which the conference volumes—15 already—moved to Edipuglia in Bari) is gradually expanding, although probably not with the speed that once was wished for by Mommsen in 1890: ‘we need a commentary that for every single passage provides parallel places in the collection itself and outside of it, or mentions the lack of these (…)’,[6] in order to get a better grip on the enigmatic work that the HA always is. For the preparations of the commentary the Bonner Historia Augusta colloquia were once called to life, in 1962, as a result of which a new volume can now be added to the series. Six volumes of commentaries have been issued so far, and quite some more to go for a biographical collection in thirty books. It is a blessing that the Bonner publisher Habelt is tenaciously holding to the ideal that was so insistingly formulated by one of the founders of modern Latin scholarship. Heller’s work is a worthy and admirable contribution to that Herculean task.
Notes
[1] The Kommentar under discussion finds its Romanesque counterpart in the Histoire Auguste tome III 2e partie edited by C. Bertrand-Dagenbach and A. Molinier-Arbo (2014).
[2] Notably by C. Bertrand-Dagenbach in her Alexandre Sévère et l’Histoire Auguste, Brussels 1991.
[3] The Journal of Roman Studies 110, 167-98.
[4] As David Rohrbacher 2016, 28 has suggested.
[5] See my ‘Aurelius Victor, Festus and the Others’ in Historiae Augustae Colloquium Dusseldorpiense, 2017, 39-40.
[6] Hermes 25, 228-92.