Herodian and Elagabalus

Summary

The late adam parry, whom this volume commemorates, was a perceptive reader of Thucydides. The subsequent influence of the great historian of the Peloponnesian War was well known to Parry, and it may therefore be appropriate to dedicate to his memory the following inquiry. In the middle of the third century a.d. Herodian set for himself Thucydides' lofty aims of sound judgment and of accuracy, and he expressed them in Thucydidean language. Modern assessments of Herodian's success have varied, but at the present time there is almost a consensus in the condemnation of this historian. It is not merely that he failed to reach the standard of his classical predecessor: most believe that he did not even make the effort. Frank Kolb, the latest scholar to publish a work on Herodian, labels the history a Geschichtsroman. In the same vein Geza Alföldy declares that it is ‘mehr eine Art historischen Romans als ein Geschichtswerk’. T. D. Barnes refers to Herodian's ‘ubiquitous distaste for facts’, and Sir Ronald Syme calls him ‘fluent and superficial’. The denigration has acquired the strength and majesty of a chorus, and it has encouraged scholars to dismiss the testimony of Herodian with minimal reflection. Kolb's dissertation has even reached the conclusion that Herodian simply added dramatic and rhetorical embellishment to the narrative of Cassius Dio. Yet Herodian, though falling far short of Thucydides' goals (so did Thucydides) and obviously a creature of his own sophistic age, states that he is writing of events which he saw and heard (εἶδόν τε καὶ ἤκουσα).