A Stork on a Fig Tree, a Colt on a Roof, the Mirror of Didius Iulianus and the Mask of Elagabalus. Welcome to the Religious World of the 2nd and 3rd Centuries A.D... According to the Historia Augusta

Abstract

The chapter studies several texts of re­ligious content from the Historia Augusta using a double point of view. On the one hand, are described the satirical allusions present in these passages. On the other, the political criticism contained in these frag­ments is reconstructed. The ultimate goal of this text is to propose a coherent read­ing for the whole of the Historia Augusta. Several fragments of the Vita Marci (13, 6), the Vita Pertinaci (1, 2-3 y 14,1-3), the Vita Didii Iuliani (7, 9-11), the Vita Pescennii Nigri (6, 5-8), the Vita Heliogabali (5, 4-5; 6, 4-5 y 28, 2) and the Vita Alexandri Severi (49, 6) are analyzed throughout the text. The autor provides original translations of all of them. The reading of this corpus allows to define the historiographic record and the critical personality of the elusive and naughty author of the fundamental col­lection of imperial biographies from the II and III century AD.