Ammianus Marcellinus (325/330–after 391) was a fourth-century
RomanAncient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
historian. His is the second-to-last major historical account written during Antiquity (the last was written by
ProcopiusProcopius of Caesarea was a prominent Byzantine scholar from Palestine. Accompanying the general Belisarius in the wars of the Emperor Justinian I, he became the principal historian of the 6th century, writing the Wars of Justinian, the Buildings of Justinian and the celebrated Secret History...
). His work chronicled in Latin the history of Rome from 96 to 378, although only the sections covering the period 353–378 are extant.
Biography
Ammianus was born between 325 and 330 in the
GreekGreek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...
-speaking East,, possibly at
AntiochAntioch on the Orontes was an ancient city on the eastern side of the Orontes River...
. The surviving books of his history, the 'Res Gestae', cover the years 353 to 378. Ammianus served as a soldier in the army of
Constantius IIFlavius Iulius Constantius, known in English as Constantius II was a Roman Emperor of the Constantinian dynasty.-Early life:...
in Gaul and Persia.
He was "a former soldier and a Greek" (
miles quondam et graecus), he tells us, and his enrolment among the elite
protectores domestici (household guards) shows that he was of noble birth. He entered the army at an early age, when
Constantius IIFlavius Iulius Constantius, known in English as Constantius II was a Roman Emperor of the Constantinian dynasty.-Early life:...
was emperor of the East, and was sent to serve under
UrsicinusUrsicinus was the "master of cavalry" in the Eastern Roman Empire c. 349-359.In 353, Ammianus Marcellinus was attached to the command of Ursicinus at his headquarters in Nisibis...
, governor of
NisibisNusaybin is a city in Mardin Province, southeastern Turkey populated by Turks, Kurds, Assyrian/Syriacs, Arabs....
in
MesopotamiaMesopotamia was one of three provinces created by the Roman emperor Trajan in AD 116 following a successful military campaign against Parthia. The acquisitions marked the peak of expansion of the Roman Empire and were evacuated by Hadrian only two years later, in AD 118. They did get to keep the...
, and
magister militum.
He returned to Italy with Ursicinus, when he was recalled by Constantius, and accompanied him on the expedition against
Silvanus the FrankClaudius Silvanus was a Roman general of Frankish descent, usurper in Gaul against Emperor Constantius II for 28 days in 355.- Origin and career :...
, who had been forced by the allegedly unjust accusations of his enemies into proclaiming himself emperor in
GaulGaul is a historical name used in the context of the Roman Empire in references to the region of Western Europe approximating present day France and Belgium, but also sometimes including the Po Valley, western Switzerland, and the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the River...
. With Ursicinus he went twice to the East. On one occasion he was separated from Ursicinus and took refuge in Amida (modern
DiyarbakırDiyarbakır is the largest city in southeastern Turkey. Situated on the banks of the River Tigris, it is the administrative capital of the Diyarbakır Province with a population of almost 1.5 million...
) which was thereupon besieged by the Sassanid king
Shapur IIShapur II the Great was the ninth King of the Persian Sassanid Empire from 309 to 379. During his long reign, the Sassanid Empire saw its first golden era since the reign of Shapur I .- Early childhood :...
; he barely escaped with his life. When Ursicinus lost his office and the favour of Constantius, Ammianus seems to have shared his downfall; but under
JulianFlavius Claudius Julianus, known also as Julian, Julian the Apostate or Julian the Philosopher , was Roman Emperor , last of the Constantinian dynasty...
, Constantius's successor, he regained his position. He accompanied this emperor, for whom he expresses enthusiastic admiration, in his campaigns against the
AlamanniThe Alamanni, Allemanni, or Alemanni were originally an alliance of Germanic tribes located around the upper Main river . One of the earliest references to them is the cognomen Alamannicus assumed by Roman Emperor Caracalla, who ruled the Roman Empire from 211–17 and claimed thereby to be their...
and the
SassanidsThe Sassanid Empire or Sasanian Empire, known to its inhabitants as Ērānshahr, was the last pre-Islamic Persian Empire, ruled by the Sasanian Dynasty who reigned from 224 to 651 CE...
; after the death of Julian, he took part in the retreat of
JovianFlavius Iovianus, anglicized to Jovian, was a soldier elected Roman Emperor by the army on 27 June 363 upon the death of Emperor Julian the Apostate during his Sassanid campaign...
as far as Antioch, where he was residing when the conspiracy of Theodorus (371) was discovered and cruelly put down.
Work
At Rome, he wrote in Latin a history of the Roman empire from the accession of
NervaMarcus Cocceius Nerva was a Roman Emperor who reigned from 96 until his death in 98. Nerva acceded to this position at the advanced age of 65, after a lifetime of imperial service under Nero and the rulers of the Flavian dynasty—Vespasian, Titus and Domitian...
(96) to the death of Valens at the
Battle of AdrianopleThe Battle of Adrianople , sometimes known as the Battle of Hadrianopolis, was fought between a Roman army led by the Roman Emperor Valens and Gothic rebels led by Fritigern...
(378), in effect writing a continuation of the history of Tacitus. He presumably completed the work before 391, since at 22.16.12 he praises the
SerapeumA Serapeum is a temple or other religious institution dedicated to the syncretic Hellenistic-Egyptian god Serapis, who combined aspects of Osiris and Apis in a humanized form that was palatable to the Ptolemaic Greeks of Alexandria...
in Egypt as the glory of the empire, and the temple was destroyed by Christians at the end of that year.
Res Gestae Libri XXXI was originally in thirty-one books, but the first thirteen are lost (Barnes argues that the original was actually thirty-six books, which would mean that nineteen books had been lost). The surviving eighteen books cover the period from 353 to 378. As a whole it has been considered extremely valuable, being a clear, comprehensive and in general impartial account of events by a contemporary. Like many ancient historians, Ammianus had a strong political and religious agenda to pursue, however, and he contrasted
Constantius IIFlavius Iulius Constantius, known in English as Constantius II was a Roman Emperor of the Constantinian dynasty.-Early life:...
with
JulianFlavius Claudius Julianus, known also as Julian, Julian the Apostate or Julian the Philosopher , was Roman Emperor , last of the Constantinian dynasty...
to the former's constant disadvantage; like all ancient writers he was skilled in rhetoric, and this shows in his work.
Edward GibbonEdward Gibbon was an English historian and Member of Parliament. His most important work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788...
judged Ammianus "an accurate and faithful guide, who composed the history of his own times without indulging the prejudices and passions which usually affect the mind of a contemporary." But he also condemned Ammianus for lack of literary flair: "The coarse and undistinguishing pencil of Ammianus has delineated his bloody figures with tedious and disgusting accuracy." Ernst Stein praised Ammianus as "the greatest literary genius that the world produced between Tacitus and Dante".
According to
Kimberly KaganKimberly Kagan is an American military historian. She heads the Institute for the Study of War and has taught at West Point, Yale, Georgetown University, and American University. Kagan has published in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Weekly Standard and elsewhere...
, his accounts of battles emphasize the experience of the soldiers but at the cost of ignoring the bigger picture. As a result it is difficult for the reader to understand why the battles he describes had the outcome they did.
Scholars have often believed that Ammianus' work was intended for public recitation for two reasons: the overwhelming presence of accentual clausulae, which implies that it was intended to be read aloud; and epistle 1063 of Libanius to a Marcellinus of Rome which refers to public recitations. However, virtually all major works of Greek and Latin prose possessed such clausulae; and some scholars have rejected the identification of Libanius' Marcellinus with Ammianus, since Marcellinus was a very common name and the tone suggests Libanius was addressing a man much younger than himself (Ammianus was his contemporary). It is a striking fact that Ammianus, though a professional soldier, gives excellent pictures of social and economic problems, and in his attitude to the non-Roman peoples of the empire he is far more broad-minded than writers like
LivyTitus Livius , known as Livy in English, was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Chapters from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC...
and
TacitusPublius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...
; his digressions on the various countries he had visited are particularly interesting.
Ammianus' work contains a detailed description of the
tsunamiThe 365 AD Crete earthquake was an undersea earthquake that occurred at about sunrise on 21 July 365 AD in the Eastern Mediterranean, with an assumed epicentre near Crete. Geologists today estimate the quake to have been 8 on the Richter Scale or higher, causing widespread destruction in central...
in Alexandria which devastated the metropolis and the shores of the eastern Mediterranean on 21 July 365. His report describes accurately the characteristic sequence of earthquake, retreat of the sea and sudden giant wave.
His work has suffered terribly from the manuscript transmission. Aside from the loss of the first thirteen books, the remaining eighteen are in many places corrupt and lacunose. The sole surviving manuscript from which almost every other is derived is a ninth-century Carolingian text,
V, produced in Fulda from an insular exemplar. The only independent textual source for Ammianus lies in
M, another ninth-century Frankish codex which was, unfortunately, unbound and placed in other codices during the fifteenth century. Only six leaves of
M survive; however, the printed edition of Gelenius (
G) is considered to be based on
M, making it an important witness to the textual tradition of the
Res Gestae.
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