Roma nella Historia Augusta

The Anonymous author of the Historia Augusta didn’t know about Rome. He was not a member of the urban senatorial aristocracy of late-antique Rome, but, maybe, someone born somewhere else in the empire during the age of Valentinian III. The analysis of the Praefatio of the Vita divi Aureliani and of the other passages by ‘Flavius Vopiscus’, one of the fictitious avatars of the Anonymous writer, testifies to his complete ignorance of obvious topographic features of the Urbs. On the contrary, the Anonymous was well aware of the new role which the Forum Traiani – nowadays known as Forum Ulpium – played in the culture of the fifth century as a memorial of the past greatness of Rome.