Summary The fate of the Serapeum and especially of its library is still a hotly-debated topic. The present paper aims to provide a consistent reading of the extant source evidence. Christian authors, such as Tertullian, Epiphanius of Salamis, and John Chrysostom, acknowledge that the Septuagint bible translation was moved from the original royal library to the Serapeum by the end of the second century A.D. This could be because the Serapeum had become Alexandria’s main library after the temple was rebuilt (...) following a fire in 181 A.D. Writing in the early fifth century, Orosius is our most important witness that the Christian mob destroyed not only the temple building, but also the library and that this library was the successor of the original Ptolemaic library. There are several other possible allusions to the destruction of the library, for example, in sermons delivered by John Chrysostom in the 390s. This article also argues that Ammianus Marcellinus, Aphthonius, and Epiphanius of Salamis were aware of the destruction of the library when they wrote their descriptions of the Serapeum probably not before 391. Taken together, these sources illuminate the ways in which events of such magnitude broke very quickly in various parts of the Roman empire. Nevertheless, some authors, especially the pagan ones, were hesitant to refer to the destruction other than in allusive and muted ways, probably because of the heated religious atmosphere in the immediate aftermath. (shrink)

These comments start, as they must, from the text of I. Hilberg in the Vienna corpus.1 This was the first properly critical edition of the Letters,and has not been superseded. It is, however, not without its limitations. In establishing his text Hilberg considered only a few MSS for each letter: for epist.1, seven, and for epist.107, six, in one of which the letter is represented twice, though in neither case is it complete.Hilberg promised a volume of prolegomena and indices to (...) accompany his text;2 but it seems that he died before it could appear, and we do not know how he assessed his MSS, or how many he consulted before making his choice.What we do know is that those on which he relied form a very small proportion of those which exist.B.Lambert′s catalogue of Jerome MSS3 lists 138 for epist.1 and 145 for epist.107, of which ten and thirteen respectively are dated ninth-to-tenth-century or earlier - and Lambert is well aware that his list cannot pretend to be exhaustive.4 Furthermore, there is some reason to doubt the accuracy of the collations which form the basis of Hilberg′s edition.5 It is evident that much work remains to be done before a definitive edition can be produced.Meanwhile Hilberg′s text is the best we have, and where I cite MSS I follow the readings of his apparatus criticus.6 The phrase ‘the MSS’ refers, in this article, only to those which Hilberg utilised. (shrink)

Although the biographies known collectively as the Historia Augusta purport to have been written by six different biographers, it has often been thought that their similarities are so numerous that they must be the work of a single author. In this article I shall deal with a piece of linguistic evidence which supports this view. The two scholars who have treated the language of the H.A. in most detail, E. Wölfnin and E. Klebs, attempted to show that certain linguistic features (...) which are not spread evenly among the Scriptores point to multiplicity of authorship. (shrink)

A distinctive feature of the biographies of Suetonius is his methodical and detailed description of the physical appearances of the emperors. This feature was adopted by two fourth-century Latin writers, Ammianus Marcellinus and the anonymous author of the Historia Augusta. This study will explore how ancient theories of the relationship between appearance and character intersect with the physical descriptions of emperors the authors provide. These authors reveal themselves to be engaged with contemporary approaches to the question without being bound by (...) any one theory, and thus presuppose a readership for whom physiognomic questions were both interesting and debatable. The approaches of the authors to this minor feature in their work also offer broader insight into their biographical style and purpose. (shrink)

Although the biographies known collectively as theHistoria Augustapurport to have been written by six different biographers, it has often been thought that their similarities are so numerous that they must be the work of a single author. In this article I shall deal with a piece of linguistic evidence which supports this view.The two scholars who have treated the language of theH.A.in most detail, E. Wölfnin and E. Klebs, attempted to show that certain linguistic features which are not spread evenly (...) among the Scriptores point to multiplicity of authorship. (shrink)