| Dessau recognized that, despite its claims, the Historia Augusta was written towards the end of the fourth century CE by a single man. This thesis has guided almost 125 years of scholarship, yet the ambiguity that permeates the Historia Augusta has left it without a fitting, or even coherent, interpretation. It has been described as panegyric for the emperor Julian, anti-Christian polemic, pro-pagan apology, or a trivial literary trifle that somehow survived the centuries. The Historia Augusta demands a single argument that can explain its eccentricities. The answer is satire.;Verse satire and Menippean satire were the primary exponents of the genre in antiquity, and the Historia Augusta shares much with them. Verse satire was scathing and erudite, Menippean satire exhibited ribaldry and poetic indulgence. Even parody, satire's cousin, shares the collection's silliness and generic inversion. The Historia Augusta demonstrates traces of all these genres but defies a precise label. To analyze its satiric content, we need to determine the commonalities of satire and explore their role in the Historia Augusta. These generic tropes are a fixation on the quotidian, narrative ambiguity, and a central critique that ultimately leaves the reader in a state of aporia. These elements pervade the Historia Augusta and make it a generic pastiche, nominally biography but fundamentally satiric.;The Historia Augusta exhibits quotidian themes in its delight at demonstrating the sexual and gastronomic depravities of its emperors; in its constant puns and humor; and in its parody of biography, which emphasizes the personal over the political. The many inventions, both about itself and its subjects, imbue the Historia Augusta with deep ambiguity. These prove the presence of satire but not its meaning. The Historia Augusta briefly treats religion, but its aporetic effect is minimal compared with politics. There one sees ineffectual and corrupt emperors, a senate capable only of abject servility, and no hope for change. Devoting a work to meaningless institutions fosters aporia, but the Historia Augusta does not wallow. It offers a novel solution to this inexorable cycle of futility: laughter. |
