The Life of Aelius Lampridius, Biographer
By Pneumaticus
Translated by Howard R. Sauertieg
This is a work in progress . . .

I. In the series of lives of those who have written the lives of Roman emperors of the past, next comes the famous Aelius Lampridius. It is pleasing to recount for your royal ear, O great Romulus Augustus, beloved of God and men, the most notable events, circumstances, and achievements of an humble life in the field of letters, for the discovery of merit even among his most obscure subjects will always tend to exalt the sovereign, whose greatness so far surpasses their own, by law both human and divine. If, on the other hand, his subjects display only the sins and vices of mankind, with no admixture of virtue, the sovereign is exalted by the great chasm separating him from the common lot, preserving his virtue and dignity inviolate even in the most unfortunate times. There is no subject greater than an Emperor of Rome, and for this reason I am pleased to embark upon the life of a literary man who, in the prosecution of his life's work, disdained the ass, the atom, and all such foolishness, offering to his sovereign, the great Constantine, the only matter worthy of his consideration. 
II. The life of Lampridius emerges from obscurity on short notice, and, like a meteor, it burns brightly in our remembrance, though in actual fact the sacred fire is extinguished not long after it dazzles the eye. That is, the appearance is sudden and unexpected, the splendor is short-lived. But most men never emerge from obscurity at all; they live basely and die ingloriously. In his timeless Lives, the most excellent portion of the mortal Lampridius will never die, that portion which the world most desires to retain, and which gives perpetually without taking or asking any succor or sustenance. 
The Lives of Lampridius we know well; the life of Lampridius the man is obscure, and some writers of the present age insist (brazenly, though not without reason of a kind) that Aelius Lampridius is a literary phantom, without substance or shadow. Such arrogance should be generously, but firmly, imputed to their ignorance, not to their malice or envy. Sallust, I think, very nearly put his finger on this issue, when he wrote that men are most eager to deny the greatness of others. While he seemed thereby to insinuate that men are naturally envious and malicious, what he really was saying is that men rarely discover superior merit among their brethren, and therefore the common opinion holds that great men exist only as authors' inventions, in books, poems and song, or in the theater. 
But the example of the Apostles is sufficient to refute this common opinion. Consorting with the greatest man Who ever lived, a vile band of Judeans recognized the eternal King of the Universe in His specious garb of humility and mortality, delivered themselves unto His care and discipline, and under His tutelage transformed their own lives, becoming great themselves by propagating tales and examples of His greatness throughout the world. Do we doubt their claims to authorship, or their veracity? Do we deny their greatness, when we affirm that they were not perfect? 
In the estimation of a man, perfection is not the ultimate in greatness. A perfect slave is not a great man; he is a valuable slave. A perfect man is no man at all; he is a Son of God, as different from all other men as the infinite differs from the numerable. So, given that the Apostles are commonly regarded as great, though imperfect men, as are the saints and martyrs of less distant times, we must allow for the possibility of more great men (and women, O Emperor, must not be despised!), whose deeds are reckoned by other criteria than those of the Church; for we surely know of many great men who lived and died prior to the reign of that most able administrator, Tiberius Caesar, in complete ignorance of the Faith; and there have been many among the later Emperors who knew and despised the Faith, yet served the State and distinguished themselves most gloriously. 
In light of these considerations, and others for which we have no time here, it is certainly vain to deny substance to Lampridius, or to some being who styled himself "Lampridius," since his Lives are incontrovertible evidence of their author's prior existence; and a man without substance is no man at all, but rather a figment of some fool's irrational imagination. Our Lampridius was seen, heard, known and documented by contemporaries, and the Imperial archives include several important documents and written accounts, which, by the beneficent generosity of Your Grace, supply the firm factual basis for our regrettably brief and episodic narrative of his great life. Be assured, O Pious, if we had more records of the life of Lampridius, then I would have less to say of the Apostles and our idolatrous ancestors. As Your Wisdom has inculcated, we must make a little go a long way, and value our finished achievement more highly for the meagerness of means with which it was accomplished. 
III. It cannot be denied that Lampridius was unfortunate in his origin. The sire of Lampridius was a slave in the house of Narcissus, who lived with his wife, Dionysia, of whom we shall hear more shortly, and several other slaves in the suburbs of Alexandria. There Narcissus earned a small fortune digging graves for Christian martyrs (or rather, purchasing slaves at rock-bottom prices and assigning this odious and profitable work to them). An infamous man, Narcissus was brutal to everyone in his power, stocky (but weak and flabby), totally bald, and, though far from chaste, impotent sexually. Thus when Dionysia, his wife, began to swell about the middle, Narcissus accused the only potent slave in his household, and while the poor wretch lay sleeping on a bed of straw, he castrated him with his own hands, or instruments. Dionysia he savagely beat about the abdomen, cursing her lust and his shameful affliction, until at last his brutality recoiled upon himself, and he was murdered by the castrated slave, who cleverly concealed his crime. First, the monster, still warm, was cast into a new-dug grave, along with a filthy collection of picture books which he had cherished in life, and all of this trash was rapidly covered over. Simpaticus, however, records, on what authority I know not, that Narcissus was dropped down a well. Second, the slave assumed the identity of Narcissus and performed all the duties of a husband to Dionysia, who was soon delivered of a child, our Aelius Lampridius. For Narcissus physically resembled his former master in every particular, and the community was only too willing to connive with Narcissus and his joyful household in the virtual annihilation of such a man. 
IV. Narcissus had maintained only the most necessary and criminal connections with humankind, generally with the oppressed Christians, from whom he extorted outrageous fees for the decent burial for their martyrs. His more virtuous successor threw open his doors to the most excellent personages of Alexandria. We know that Lampridius, when he was studying at Rome in the schools of jurisprudence, informed some fellows that he had been raised among a coterie of sage philosophers and magistrates, who discoursed with Narcissus far into the night on matters philosophical and jurisprudential, always encouraging the bright, bookish youth (an only child) to develop his budding talents and virtues, and to become worthy of the republic's most honorable offices. 
Narcissus deprived his son of nothing that might improve his future state, meanwhile always fixing the boy's attention on the vicissitudes of life, on the saving graces of money and social status, which had so happily converted the family's fortune and prospects literally overnight, and on the life he might have led had Heaven not smiled upon a just, though criminal, act of vengeance. "I was a bloody slave, you were a bloody bastard," Narcissus would often say, "and I dreamed dreams of bloodshed and butchery. Then, suddenly awake, I asserted and reaffirmed my inviolable manhood. Now we are Narcissus & Son, movers & shakers of earth." The boy, therefore, became a young man who was most zealous in pursuit of friends, influence, and power, so far as these pursuits are constrained by republican virtue. 
V. As was previously mentioned, Lampridius studied jurisprudence at Rome, but he did not complete his studies, and from the accounts left by his fellows (certainly malicious and envious of his later accomplishments) it seems that Lampridius was accused of unoriginality in some of his oral arguments and written exercises. Such allegations, however, only increase our respect for those Lives of his later career, which instill the most laudable precepts in the minds of all who read them, or who hear them read aloud, without repeating the tired platitudes and clichés that constitute the bulk of our written material, which, seeking to edify, instead drives the reader into rebellion and the practice of every abhorrent vice, from sheer boredom, I suppose, or perhaps from lack of a good example. It is difficult to reconcile the author of Alexander's Life, who is so evidently practiced in virtue and devoted to liberal studies, with the disreputable youth portrayed by those shysters and sharks of the Roman school. But however trifling and insignificant their accusations might seem to us today, they must have carried some weight in the degenerate school of that place and time, for we next find Lampridius back home in Alexandria and working, for the first time, alongside the slaves of Narcissus in the burial grounds. 
From this slough of disgrace Lampridius was soon to soar aloft into that rarified zone so near to Heaven, where we find Plutarch, Suetonius and Marius Maximus reflecting rays of regal glory upon a weary world, so susceptible by nature to pitch blackness and despair. 
TO BE CONTINUED...