download article as .pdf:  Erodiano (7,2,1-8), le megístai eikones di Massimino e la guerra germanica del 235

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Livadiotti U

Despite the recent findings of Harzhorn, the German campaign of Maximinus Thrax remains basically impossible to reconstruct. The only literary source that talks about it, the contemporary Herodian, in fact based his history on the observation of the eikones erected in the Roman Forum to celebrate the Emperor’s behavior. Anyway, if on one hand it inhibits the possibility to recognize documentary value of the limited informations contained in the herodianean report, on the other hand it demonstrates the ability by works of “official” art to convey in its audience (like precisely Herodianus) messages ideologically reassuring.