The Son of the Emperor Macrinus

Bibliographic Data

ID3938862
AuthorsRonald Syme (corresponding author)
Year1972
Volume26
Issue3
Pages275
Publication date1972-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePhoenix (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-8299 • E-ISSN: 1929-4883
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/1087835
OpenAlexW2316541925
LanguageEN
Citations received6

I. On one aspect the reign of Macrinus is a brief interlude in the story of the Severan dynasty. Antoninus Caracalla was assassinated on April 8, 217. A year had hardly elapsed when chance and the potency of his name and memory led to the proclamation of the boy Elagabalus, alleged to be his son (at Emesa on May 16, 218). The rapid and dramatic actions engross attention and dominate the narrations that survive, to the obscuration of sundry other matters; and modern accounts tend to conform. However, those narrations have another use. They illustrate the methods of historians, and their quality. Of what Cassius Dio wrote from personal knowledge, this portion is the most instructive, so it has been affirmed.1 Dio was at Rome, his text happens to be almost intact, and it reveals, along with many facts and names, the judgements provoked in a senator by a distasteful phenomenon: the first knight to seize the power, and he of lowly extraction. As for the fluent and superficial Herodian, who here exhibits most of his known defects, there is no call to expatiate in this place. The enquiry concerns the Historia Augusta. The preface of the Vita Macrini opens on the theme of emperors, princes, and usurpers who did not reign or live for long. There was not much to report about them. None the less, the author will be at pains to publish the fruits of diligent research: ex diversis historicis eruta in lucem proferemus. And to be sure only digna memoratu, for the neglect of which he goes on to castigate 'Junius Cordus,' the archetype of the frivolous biographer. After the noble professions, the product may come as a surprise-at least to any who lack familiarity with the habits of the genial impostor. Fiction almost total. With rare exceptions, the facts are confined to a single passage dealing with the insurrection at Emesa and the end of Macrinus (8.3-10.4). It is a drastic abbreviation of Herodian, whose name is not disclosed in the Vita

Ancient history · Art · Emperor · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classical Studies and Legal History · Historical and Religious Studies of Rome · History

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