Historiography in the Third Century AD

Abstract

Abstract Although the only contemporary accounts of Roman political history to survive from the period between the civil war of 238 and the reign of Constantine are the Thirteenth Sibylline Oracle and the great inscription of Sapor at Naqsh-i-Rustam, it is not true that there was a hiatus in the writing of traditional history during these years —at least not in Greek. Serious historical writing in Latin seems to have given way to imperial biography in the reign of Hadrian, and it would appear that there was no historian of note who wrote in Latin to cover the period after AD 96.