Sereno Sammonico: res reconditae e dati di fatto

Res reconditae and matters of fact. Serenus Sammonicus’s relations with Septimius Severus and Geta, his murder by the hand of Caracalla, his possession of a rich library bequeathed later to the emperor Gordian), his passion for gourmandise: almost everything that is linked to biography and chronology of the learned man relies on the Vitae of the Historia Augusta, and just minimally on Macrobius’s Saturnalia. Modern scholars don’t usually take into account the evidence of John of Lydia, according to whom Σαωνικὸς ὁ Ῥωαῖος ἱστορικός addressed himself to Diocletian and Galerius. A fresh reexamination of the texts will enable us not only to appreciate the date suggested for Sammonicus’ life and time by the Byzantine writer, but also to strengthen the hypothesis that here, as elsewhere, the Scriptores extracted some information for their fictitious tales from Macrobius.