A later article (1892)[32] was more conclusive,
as here he attempted to prove that no one forger could have adopted the
variety of attitude towards both the Senate and Christianity which we
find expressed in the various sections of the “lives,” while the presence
of geographical names and official titles, lost before the beginning of
the fourth century, point to earlier authenticity, not later forgery.
Woelfflin[33] in 1891 supported Mommsen on textual grounds. He traces
the differences of style to the fact that certain authors had used
Suetonius, others Maximus, while others again had trusted to their own
retentive memories, not altogether a safe historical criterion. He states
that the traces of similarity running through the works are due certainly
to a reviser, but that the reviser was Vopiscus,[34] which either puts
Vopiscus at a much later date than had ever been done before, or resigns
the idea of a late reviser in the Mommsen sense.
Dessau[35] in 1892 replied with a scathing attack on this same Vopiscus,
from the point of view of his age and the impossibility of his having
seen and heard all he claims to have done. Seeck[36] in 1894 published a
second article supporting Dessau with six points culled from titles and
names not known till after the reputed dates of the Scriptores. He now
considers that plurality of authors, or forgers, as the case may be, is
certain, and that they wrote, or forged, as Diocletian and Constantine
gave command, using for their work many sources, including the Imperial
Chronicle. But it is an inconclusive article.
In 1899 an American, Dr. Drake[37] of Michigan, published some studies
in detail on the life of Caracalla, which tended to establish the
genuineness of certain portions which had been thought spurious. Heer[38]
of Leipzig followed in 1901 with a critical survey of the life of
Commodus, dividing it into two parts, the first chronological, the second
biographical, and came to the conclusion that, though the chronological
part was trustworthy, the biography was derived from very poor sources,
and was only in part contemporaneous. Schulz[39] in 1903 applied the same
methods to the lives from Commodus to Caracalla, in 1904 to the life
of Hadrian,[40] and in 1907 to the lives of the house of Antonine,[41]
unfortunately leaving out Elagabalus.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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