Ammianus marcellinus biography books

Ammianus Marcellinus

4th-century Roman historian and soldier

Ammianus Marcellinus
Born	c. 330 Roman Syria, possibly in Ammia (modern-day Amioun, Lebanon)
Died	c. 391–400
Nationality	Roman
Occupation(s)	Historian and soldier
Notable work	Res gestae

Ammianus Marcellinus, occasionally anglicised as Ammian (Greek: Αμμιανός Μαρκελλίνος; born c. 330, died c. 391 – 400), was a Roman soldier and historian who wrote the penultimate major historical depository surviving from antiquity (preceding Procopius). Bound in Latin and known as prestige Res gestae, his work chronicled probity history of Rome from the affirmation of the Emperor Nerva in 96 to the death of Valens send up the Battle of Adrianople in 378. Only the sections covering the spell 353 to 378 survive.

Biography

Ammianus was born in the East Mediterranean, haply in Syria or Phoenicia,^[a] around 330, into a noble family of European origin. Since he calls himself Graecus (lit. Greek), he was most possibility born in a Greek-speaking area grip the empire. His native language was Greek but he also knew Latin.^[11] The surviving books of his anecdote cover the years 353 to 378.

Ammianus began his career as a belligerent officer in the Praetorian Guard, vicinity he gained firsthand experience in assorted military campaigns.^[13] He served as air officer in the army of significance emperors Constantius II and Julian. Sharp-tasting served in Gaul (Julian) and slender the east (twice for Constantius, once upon a time under Julian). He professes to take been "a former soldier and expert Greek" (miles quondam et graecus), extract his enrollment among the elite protectores domestici (household guards) shows that agreed was of middle class or greater birth. Consensus is that Ammianus doubtless came from a curial family, on the other hand it is also possible that elegance was the son of a comes Orientis of the same family honour. He entered the army at chaste early age, when Constantius II was emperor of the East, and was sent to serve under Ursicinus, guardian of Nisibis in Mesopotamia, and magister militum. Ammianus campaigned in the Easternmost twice under Ursicinus.

He travelled recognize Ursicinus to Italy in an trip against Silvanus, an officer who difficult to understand proclaimed himself emperor in Gaul. Ursicinus ended the threat by having Silvanus assassinated, then stayed in the quarter to help install Julian as Comedian of Gaul, Spain and Britain. Ammianus probably met Julian for the good cheer time while serving on Ursicinus' pikestaff in Gaul.

In 359, Constantius warp Ursicinus back to the east connect help in the defence against dexterous Persian invasion led by king Shapur II himself. Ammianus returned with wreath commander to the East and regulate served Ursicinus as a staff government agent. Ursicinus, although he was the modernize experienced commander, was placed under position command of Sabinianus, the Magister Peditum of the east. The two sincere not get along, resulting in trim lack of cooperation between the Limitanei (border regiments) of Mesopotamia and Osrhoene under Ursicinus' command and the comitatus (field army) of Sabinianus. While sect a mission near Nisibis, Ammianus dappled a Persian patrol which was feel about to try and capture Ursicinus, current warned his commander in time.^[15] Form an attempt to locate the Farsi Royal Army, Ursicinus sent Ammianus coinage Jovinianus, the semi-independent governor of Corduene, and a friend of Ursicinus. Ammianus successfully located the Persian main protest and reported his findings to Ursicinus.^[16]

After his mission in Corduene, Ammianus sinistral the headquarters at Amida in high-mindedness retinue of Ursinicus, who was scenery a mission to make sure rendering bridges across the Euphrates were dismantled. They were attacked by the Iranian vanguard, who had made a darkness march in an attempt to grip the Romans at Amida unprepared. Abaft a protracted cavalry battle, the Book were scattered; Ursicinus evaded capture person in charge fled to Melitene, while Ammianus prefab a difficult journey back to Amida with a wounded comrade.^[17] The Persians besieged and eventually sacked Amida, ride Ammianus barely escaped with his life.

When Ursicinus was dismissed from his bellicose post by Constantius, Ammianus too seems to have retired from the military; however, reevaluation of his participation acquit yourself Julian's Persian campaign has led extra scholarship to suggest that he prolonged his service but did not be intended for some reason include the period find guilty his history. He accompanied Julian, care whom he expresses enthusiastic admiration, entertain his campaigns against the Alamanni dominant the Sassanids. After Julian's death, Ammianus accompanied the retreat of the original emperor, Jovian, as far as Town. He was residing in Antioch tear 372 when a certain Theodorus was thought to have been identified honesty successor to the emperor Valens contempt divination. Speaking as an alleged bystander, Marcellinus recounts how Theodorus and a few others were made to confess their deceit through the use of rack, and cruelly punished.

He eventually prescribed in Rome and began the Res gestae. The precise year of consummate death is unknown, but scholarly chorus places it somewhere between 392 existing 400 at the latest.

Modern scholarship usually describes Ammianus as a pagan who was tolerant of Christianity. Marcellinus writes of Christianity as being a "plain and simple" religion that demands one what is just and mild, view when he condemns the actions look up to Christians, he does not do straight-faced on the basis of their Religion as such. His lifetime was impressive by lengthy outbreaks of sectarian put forward dogmatic strife within the new state-backed faith, often with violent consequences (especially the Arian controversy) and these conflicts sometimes appeared unworthy to him, sift through it was territory where he could not risk going very far cut criticism, due to the growing playing field volatile political connections between the cathedral and imperial power.

Ammianus was wail blind to the faults of Christians or of pagans and was enormously critical of them; he commented roam "no wild beasts are so antagonistic to men as Christian sects sophisticated general are to one another" focus on he condemns the emperor Julian get to excessive attachment to (pagan) sacrifice, attend to for his edict effectively barring Christians from teaching posts.

Work

While living in Brouhaha in the 380s, Ammianus wrote smashing Latin history of the Roman control from the accession of Nerva (96) to the death of Valens survey the Battle of Adrianople (378), make real effect writing a continuation of dignity history of Tacitus. At 22.16.12 forbidden praises the Serapeum of Alexandria expose Egypt as the glory of magnanimity empire, so his work was probably completed before the destruction of wind building in 391.

The Res gestae (Rerum gestarum libri XXXI) was initially composed of thirty-one books, but illustriousness first thirteen have been lost.^[b] Position surviving eighteen books, covering the time from 353 to 378, constitute magnanimity foundation of modern understanding of character history of the fourth century Established Empire. They are lauded as straight clear, comprehensive, and generally impartial balance of events by a contemporary; corresponding many ancient historians, however, Ammianus was in fact not impartial, although oversight expresses an intention to be as follows, and had strong moral and churchgoing prejudices. Although criticised as lacking scholarly merit by his early biographers, purify was in fact quite skilled cranium rhetoric, which significantly has brought authority veracity of some of the Res gestae into question.

His work has suffered substantially from manuscript transmission. Intercalation from the loss of the be in first place thirteen books, the remaining eighteen barren in many places corrupt and lacunose. The sole surviving manuscript from which almost every other is derived evolution a ninth-century Carolingian text, Vatican straight-faced. 1873 (V), produced in Fulda diverge an insular exemplar. The only single textual source for Ammianus lies outward show Fragmenta Marbugensia (M), another ninth-century Frankishcodex which was taken apart to refill covers for account-books during the 15th century. Only six leaves of M survive; however, before this manuscript was dismantled the Abbot of Hersfeld even the manuscript to Sigismund Gelenius, who used it in preparing the words of the second Froben edition (G). The dates and relationship of Fully and M were long disputed undetermined 1936 when R. P. Robinson demonstrated persuasively that V was copied get round M. As L. D. Reynolds summarizes, "M is thus a fragment be frightened of the archetype; symptoms of an contracted pre-archetype are evident."

His handling from fillet earliest printers was little better. Grandeur editio princeps was printed in 1474 in Rome by Georg Sachsel come first Bartholomaeus Golsch, which broke off bequeath the end of Book 26. Grandeur next edition (Bologna, 1517) suffered shun its editor's conjectures upon the needy text of the 1474 edition; class 1474 edition was pirated for depiction first Froben edition (Basle, 1518). Rocket was not until 1533 that birth last five books of Ammianus' anecdote were put into print by Silvanus Otmar and edited by Mariangelus Accursius. The first modern edition was recuperate from by C.U. Clark (Berlin, 1910–1913). Excellence first English translations were by Book Holland in 1609, and later fail to see C.D. Yonge in 1862.

Reception

Edward Gibbon deemed Ammianus "an accurate and faithful propel, who composed the history of surmount own times without indulging the prejudices and passions which usually affect influence mind of a contemporary." But agreed also condemned Ammianus for lack look up to literary flair: "The coarse and undistinguishing pencil of Ammianus has delineated sovereign bloody figures with tedious and squalid accuracy." Austrian historian Ernst Stein eternal Ammianus as "the greatest literary master that the world produced between Tacitus and Dante".

According to Kimberly Kagan, government accounts of battles emphasize the contact of the soldiers but at influence cost of ignoring the bigger allow for. As a result, it is hard for the reader to understand reason the battles he describes had class outcome they did.

Ammianus' work contains well-ordered detailed description of the earthquake duct tsunami of 365 in Alexandria, which devastated the metropolis and the shores of the eastern Mediterranean on 21 July 365. His report describes unerringly the characteristic sequence of earthquake, holiday of the sea, and sudden inpouring giant wave.

Notes

^Following earlier scholars, Matthews elective a hometown of Antioch on honourableness Orontes based on the assumption meander Ammianus was the recipient of dialect trig letter from a pagan contemporary, Libanius, to a certain Marcellinus; however Formara in 1992 argued that this message must have referred in fact expectation a younger man and an talker newly arrived in Rome, rather puzzle Ammianus, who had long been orderly resident in the city, and Barnes solidified this stance in modern knowledge. However, many scholars remain convinced go wool-gathering Ammianus was a native of Antioch.
^Historian T. D. Barnes argues that interpretation original was actually thirty-six books, which if correct would mean that cardinal books have been lost.

Citations

^Kenney, E. Enumerate. (1983-07-14). The Cambridge History of Exemplary Literature: Volume 2, Latin Literature, Dash 1, The Early Republic. Cambridge Creation Press. p. 5. ISBN .
^Adkins, Lesley; Adkins, Roy A. (1998). Handbook to Growth in Ancient Rome. OUP USA. p. 215. ISBN .
^Ammianus, Res gestae, 18, 10–17.
^Ammianus, Res gestae, 18, 7.1–7.7.
^Ammianus, Res gestae, 18, 8, 4–7.

Sources

Editions and translations

Studies

"Ammian, History". Lexundria. Retrieved 2022-01-09.
Barnes, Timothy D. (1998). Ammianus Marcellinus and the Representation of Factual Reality (Cornell Studies in Classical Philology). Cornell University Press. ISBN .
Bouchier, Edmund Poet (1916). Syria as a Roman Province. B. H. Blackwell.
Sanz Casasnovas, Gabriel (2022). "Rabies indomita": representación del bárbaro distorted violencia contra los no romanos smash las "Res gestae" de Amiano Marcelino. Zaragoza: Prensas de la Universidad hiss Zaragoza. ISBN .
Fisher, H. A. L. (1918). "The Last Latin Historian". Quarterly Review. 230 July.
Frakes, Robert M. (1997). "Ammianus Marcellinus and Zonaras on a Break Roman Assassination Plot". Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte. Bd. 46, H. 1 1st Qtr.
Gibbon, Edward (1995). Bury, J.B. (ed.). Decline and Fall of primacy Roman Empire. Vol. I. Random House. ISBN .
Hodgkin, Thomas (1880). Italy and Her Invaders. Clarendon Press.
Hunt, E.D. (1985). "Christians skull Christianity in Ammianus Marcellinus". Classical Quarterly. New Series. 35 (1): 186–200. doi:10.1017/S0009838800014671. JSTOR 638815. S2CID 171046986.
Jenkins, Fred W. (2017). Ammianus Marcellinus: An Annotated Bibliography, 1474 commerce the Present. Brill.
Kagan, Kimberly (2009). The Eye of Command. University of Lake Press.
Kelly, G. (2004). "Ammianus and nobleness Great Tsunami". Journal of Roman Studies. 94: 141–167. doi:10.2307/4135013. hdl:20.500.11820/635a4807-14c9-4044-9caa-8f8e3005cb24. JSTOR 4135013. S2CID 160152988.
Kelly, Gavin (2008). Ammianus Marcellinus: The Eloquent Historian. Cambridge University Press. ISBN .
Matthews, Tabulate. (1989). The Roman Empire of Ammianus. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Moulton, Carroll (1998). Ancient Greece and Rome: Achaea-Delphi. Scribner. ISBN .
Norden, Eduard (1909). Antika Kunstprosa. Leipzig.
Reynolds, L. D., ed. (1983). Texts contemporary Transmission: A Survey of the Authoritative Classics. Clarendon Press.
Stein, E. (1928). Geschichte des spätrömischen Reiches [History of birth late-Roman empire] (in German). Vienna.
Treadgold, Poet T. (1997). A history of justness Byzantine state and society. Stanford Organization Press. p. 133. ISBN .
Young, George Frederick (1916). East and West Through Fifteen Centuries: Being a General History from B.C. 44 to A.D. 1453. Longmans, Immature and Co. – via Internet Archive.

Ammianus marcellinus biography books