12-16-2020, 08:15 PM
(12-10-2020, 04:18 PM)Justin I Wrote: The Historia Augusta is of course unreliable, but I've often wondered whether some of its stories are based on kernels of truth, and I'm intrigued by the little vignette where the emperor Tacitus is said to have won a victory over the Alans near the Maeotis swamp around 275 or 276. It's always interesting when the Roman army ventures that far from home.It is of course unreliable... honestly, I consider it far more reliable than some modern or almost modern scholars. For example considering Theodor Mommsen. He considered an exageration the idea that the emperor Maximinus launched a campaign against the Alemanni, penetrating deeply into Germany, about 4-600 kilometers, arguing that was just propaganda and that the legions had pushed themselves no more than 30-40 kilometers from the imperial borders. Instead, we have discovered that... Historia Augusta was right.
