Ammiānus Marcellīnus
The last Roman historian of any importance, born at Antioch, in Syria, about A.D. 330, of
noble Grecian descent. After receiving a careful education, he early entered military service,
and fought under Julian against the Alemanni and Persians. In the evening of his days he
retired to Rome, and about A.D. 390 began his Latin history of the emperors (
Rerum
Gestarum Libri), from Nerva , A.D. 96, to the death of Valens, in thirty-one books.
Of these there only remain books xiv.-xxxi., including the period from A.D. 353 to 378, which
he relates for the most part as an eye-witness. A heathen himself, he is, nevertheless, fair
to the Christians. As his work may be regarded as a continuation of Tacitus, he seems, on the
whole, to have taken that writer for his model. He resembles Tacitus in judgment, political
acuteness, and love of truth. But he is far inferior in literary culture, though he loves to
display his knowledge, especially in describing nations and countries. Latin was a foreign
language to him; hence a crudeness and clumsiness of expression, which is made even more
repellent by affectation, bombast, and bewildering ornamental imagery. The best edition is by
Gardthausen
(1875).
