The Late Roman World and Its Historian: Interpreting Ammianus Marcellinus

by Drijvers,Jan Willem

• ISBN13: 9780415202718
• ISBN10: 041520271X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-11-12
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This book comprises a collection of papers analyzing Ammianus's writings from a variety of perspectives, including Ammianus as historian of, and participant in, Julian's Persian campaign, his identification with traditional religious attitudes and values in Rome and his view of the Persian Magi. The contributors engage especially with the concept of self-identification. They address the tension of Ammianus' dual role as both "outside" external narrator and at the same time and "insider" to the contemporary experiences and events that make up his surviving history.

Table of Contents

Notes on Contributors	viii
Acknowledgements	x
List of abbreviations	xi
Introduction	1	(14)
David Hunt
Jan Willem Drijvers
PART I Ammianus, soldier and historian	15	(60)
Ammianus Marcellinus and fourth-century warfare: a protector's approach to historical narrative	17	(12)
Frank Trombley
Preparing the reader for war: Ammianus' digression on siege engines	29	(11)
Daan Den Hengst
The Persian invasion of 359: Presentation by suppression in Ammianus Marcellinus' Res Gestae 18.4.1-18.6.7	40	(11)
Josephina Lenssen
The outsider inside: Ammianus on the rebellion of Silvanus	51	(13)
David Hunt
Ammianus and the eunuchs	64	(11)
Shaun Tougher
PART II Images of emperors	75	(64)
Images of Constantius	77	(12)
Michael Whitby
Telling tales: Ammianus' narrative of the Persian expedition of Julian	89	(16)
Rowland Smith
Ammianus on Jovian: history and literature	105	(12)
Peter Heather
Nec metu nec adulandi foeditate constricta: the image of Valentinian I from Symmachus to Ammianus	117	(10)
Mark Humphries
Ammianus, Valentinian and the Rhine Germans	127	(12)
John Drinkwater
PART III Rome, the historian and his audience	139	(52)
Ammianus Satiricus	141	(15)
Roger Rees
A Persian at Rome: Ammianus and Eunapius, Frg. 68	156	(10)
David Woods
Some Constantinian references in Ammianus	166	(12)
Brian Warmington
Templum mundi totius: Ammianus and a religious ideal of Rome	178	(13)
Thomas Harrison
PART IV The world beyond, Persia and Isauria	191	(45)
Ammianus Marcellinus' image of Arsaces and early Parthian history	193	(14)
Jan Willem Drijvers
Pure rites: Ammianus Marcellinus on the Magi	207	(9)
Jan Den Boeft
Visa vel lecta? Ammianus on Persia and the Persians	216	(8)
Hans Teitler
Ammianus Marcellinus on Isauria	224	(12)
Keith Hopwood
Select bibliography	236	(5)
Index	241