Ammianus Marcellinus

Ammianus Marcellinus, occasionally anglicised as Ammian[1][2] (Greek: Αμμιανός Μαρκελλίνος; born c. 330, died c. 391 – 400), was a Roman soldier and historian who wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from antiquity (preceding Procopius).

Written in Latin and known as the Res gestae, his work chronicled the history of Rome from the accession of the Emperor Nerva in 96 to the death of Valens at the Battle of Adrianople in 378.

He professes to have been "a former soldier and a Greek" (miles quondam et graecus),[14] and his enrollment among the elite protectores domestici (household guards) shows that he was of middle class or higher birth.

He entered the army at an early age, when Constantius II was emperor of the East, and was sent to serve under Ursicinus, governor of Nisibis in Mesopotamia, and magister militum.

The two did not get along, resulting in a lack of cooperation between the Limitanei (border regiments) of Mesopotamia and Osrhoene under Ursicinus' command and the comitatus (field army) of Sabinianus.

After a protracted cavalry battle, the Romans were scattered; Ursicinus evaded capture and fled to Melitene, while Ammianus made a difficult journey back to Amida with a wounded comrade.

[23] His lifetime was marked by lengthy outbreaks of sectarian and dogmatic strife within the new state-backed faith, often with violent consequences (especially the Arian controversy) and these conflicts sometimes appeared unworthy to him, though it was territory where he could not risk going very far in criticism, due to the growing and volatile political connections between the church and imperial power.

[27][b] The surviving eighteen books, covering the period from 353 to 378,[29] constitute the foundation of modern understanding of the history of the fourth century Roman Empire.

Although criticised as lacking literary merit by his early biographers, he was in fact quite skilled in rhetoric, which significantly has brought the veracity of some of the Res gestae into question.

The only independent textual source for Ammianus lies in Fragmenta Marbugensia (M), another ninth-century Frankish codex which was taken apart to provide covers for account-books during the fifteenth century.

The dates and relationship of V and M were long disputed until 1936 when R. P. Robinson demonstrated persuasively that V was copied from M. As L. D. Reynolds summarizes, "M is thus a fragment of the archetype; symptoms of an insular pre-archetype are evident.

[31] Edward Gibbon 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.

"[33] Austrian historian Ernst Stein praised Ammianus as "the greatest literary genius that the world produced between Tacitus and Dante".