Page:The Amazing Emperor Heliogabalus.djvu/41

 the Scriptores themselves from internal evidence ; the latter threw light on the time when the actual lives were written, and, amongst others, assigns Lampridius' Life of Elagabalus to a period in or about the year 324. In 1865 the same author placed the study of the Scriptores on a firmer basis altogether, by introducing the system of textual criticism as applied to the sources, both Latin and Greek, from which the writers had drawn their facts.

Amongst Latin sources the chief name mentioned was Marius Maximus, of whose works nothing now remains. He was Consul under Alexander Severus and a devoted servant to that Emperor, at whose direction he attempted to complete Suetonius - by a popular and scandal-mongering edition of recent events. Mueller, in 1870, after a careful investigation of all the references to this author, concluded that his work was the compilation of a volume styled De vita imperatorum, which contained the lives of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus, Commodus, Pertinax, Julianus, Severus, Caracalla, and Elagabalus. That the last of these lives should have been written by the friend and servant of Elagabalus' murderers is in itself unfortunate, as one immediately suspects that some attempt will be made to justify the crime, or at any rate that veiled malignancy rather than a true historical portrait will be the result. It is easily discovered from the shortest perusal of the wealth