Ammianus Marcellinus

Ammianus Marcellinus
Born	325–330 Greek-speaking East, possibly Antioch
Died	391–400 (aged 61–75) Rome
Allegiance	Western Roman Empire
Service/branch	Roman army
Other work	Res Gestae

Ammianus Marcellinus (born c. 325–330 died c. 391–400) was a Roman soldier and historian who wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from Antiquity (preceding Procopius). His work, known as the Res Gestae, chronicled in Latin 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, although only the sections covering the period 353–378 survive.

Ammianus was born between 325 and 330 in the Greek-speaking East, possibly in Syria or Phoenicia. His native language was most likely Greek; he learned Latin as a second language, and was probably familiar with Syriac as well. The surviving books of his history cover the years 353 to 378.

Ammianus served as a soldier in the army of Constantius II and Julian in Gaul and Persia. He professes to have been "a former soldier and a Greek" (miles quondam et graecus), and his enrollment among the elite protectores domestici (household guards) shows that he was of middle class or higher birth. Consensus is that Ammianus probably came from a curial family, but it is also possible that he was the son of a comes Orientis of the same family name. 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.

He returned with Ursicinus to Italy when Ursicinus was recalled by Constantius to begin an expedition against Claudius Silvanus. Silvanus had been forced by the allegedly false accusations of his enemies into proclaiming himself emperor in Gaul. Ammianus campaigned in the East twice under Ursicinus. On one occasion he was separated from the officer's entourage and took refuge in Amida during the siege of the city by the Sassanids of shah Shapur II; he reportedly barely escaped with his life. When Ursicinus was dismissed from his military post by Constantinus, Ammianus too seems to have retired from the military; however, reevaluation of his participation in Julian's Persian campaigns has led modern scholarship to suggest that he continued his service but did not for some reason include the period in his history. He accompanied Julian, for whom he expresses enthusiastic admiration, in his campaigns against the Alamanni and the Sassanids. After Julian's death, Ammianus accompanied retreat of the new emperor Jovian as far as Antioch. He was residing in Antioch in 372 when a certain Theodorus was thought to have been identified the successor to the emperor Valens by divination. Speaking as an alleged eyewitness, Marcellinus recounts how Theodorus and several others were made to confess their deceit through the use of torture, and cruelly punished.

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