Lives of the Later Caesars: The First Part of the Augustan History: With Newly Compiled Lives of Nerva and Trajan. Tr and Introd by Anthony Birley. 3 (Penguin Classics)

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Summary: The Xena of Later Antiquity.
Review: If you are to read this enigmatic work, you are already a Roman History buff, so beware to sort the fiction from actual history. Historia Augusta, in its better moments, renders the same flavor as a well-accomplished Xena episode; one feels befuddled by the mix between History, sheer invention and tongue-in-cheek humour; eventually, one wants to read more (well, supposing you are a Roman history buff and a xenite...) Therefore I regret very much the absence of an integral version of the whole work, that is the second half - the histories of the emperors after Heliogabalus - where fiction predominates, and which is perhaps the most intersting part in historical terms, as it is pratically the only written source for the most troubled years of the Roman Empire. Reading the work puts a most intriguing question: why it was that Late Antiquity found it necessary to look at its own past this way? Not a entirely otiose question in our postmodern days, I daresay.

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Summary: Excellent edition and notes of a confusing classic
Review: The Augustan History is probably one of the most enigmatic and controversial historical documents to reach the present. Birley gives an excellent introduction on the current state of knowledge - according to which the book was a fraud or joke of sorts - and his notes are careful to point out what is likely to be true or not. The ancient text itself can be quite irritating to read, though. Birley's own lives of Nerva and Trajan are rather more interesting.

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Summary: the real review
Review: This book is meant to be a continuing off of the Suetonius book, ending with Elagabalus (Heliogalabalus). This book is written similarly to Suetonius and includes the cover and inside grittiness of each emperor. a must read for people interested in the personal lives of the emperors.