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Ammianus marcellinus and his classical background—Changing perspectives

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Abstract

TheHistory of Ammianus Marcellinus, like most literary works of late antiquity, has always been judged against its classical background, of which Ammianus makes constant use and to which he makes constant reference. It is against this background that the evaluation of theHistory was formed and has changed; and it has changed greatly over time. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Ammianus was regarded as an estimable and reliable source, and he was of enormous importance to Edward Gibbon for both facts and judgments. From the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century, however, Ammianus' reputation fell. The close examination of his language and its classical antecedents led to the conclusion that he was an incompetent writer, whose main value lay in his uncritical preservation of historical material. More recently, since the Second World War, Ammianus has regained and surpassed his former reputation, and is now generally regarded as one of the outstanding writers of antiquity, complex, subtle, and manipulative, and, therefore, to be handled very warily as a source of historical fact.

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References

  1. The most recent discussion of Ammianus and his classical past is T.D. Barnes, “Literary Convention, Nostalgia and Reality in Ammianus Marcellinus,” in: G. Clarke, ed.,Reading the Past in Late Antiquity (Rushcutters Bay 1990) 59–92.

  2. See E. A. Thompson,The Historical Work of Ammianus Marcellinus (Cambridge 1947) 19 and n. 6 for the scarce evidence for the use of Ammianus. There is only one direct reference to Ammianus by name, in the grammarian Priscian (he uses the name Marcellinus); the rest of the evidence consists in parallels. See, in addition, A.D.E. Cameron, “The Date and Identity of Macrobius,”Journal of Roman Studies 56, 1966, 38; R. Syme,Ammianus and the Historia Augusta (Oxford 1968). The evidence which Thompson cites hardly supports his claim that “we may posit a considerable popularity for the work of Ammianus until the sixth century” (loc. cit.). R. Syme,Ammianus and the Historia Augusta (Oxford 1968).

  3. The earliest and only really important MSS are the ninth-centuryFuldensis and a ninth- or tenth-century fragment from Hersfeld. See R. P. Robinson, “TheHersfeldensis and theFuldensis of Ammianus Marcellinus,”University of Missouri Studies 11, 1936, 118–40. For a summary of the transmission of Ammianus up to the sixteenth century, see L. D. Reynolds, “Ammianus Marcellinus,” in: L. D. Reynolds, ed.,Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics (Oxford 1983) 6–8.

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  6. The letter to Colbert prefaces Adrien'seditio posterior of Paris 1681. The quotation comes from the second page of the text. The essay by Henri comes from hiseditio prior of 1636, but Adrien reproduces it in his edition, as he does Chifflet's essay. All three essays are more conveniently consulted in the edition of Ammianus by O. A. Wagner and C. G. A. Erfurdt,Rerum gestarum libri Ammiani Marcellini quae supersunt, 3 vols. (Leipzig/London 1808), which also contains essays by Gronov, Lindenbrog, and Heyne. It is to this edition that I refer in the following notes.

  7. Wagner-Erfurdt I, lxxix–lxxx.

  8. Wagner-Erfurdt I, cii–cv.

  9. Wagner-Erfurdt I, lxxv.

  10. Wagner-Erfurdt I, xliv and xlvi, respectively.

  11. Libanius,Ep. 1603 (Opera, ed. Foerster, vol. 11 [Leipzig 1922; repr. Hildesheim 1963] p. 186). Adrien picks this up from Henri, who quotes the letter in Greek with a Latin translation (Wagner-Erfurdt I, lxxvi–lxxvii). While the identity of the letter's recipient has been disputed, a large majority of scholarly opinion accepts that it is Ammianus.

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  15. References to theDecline and Fall are to the 1783 edition. The quotation is from vol. IV, 426. Cf. IV, 396 n. 81.

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  19. Chifflet cited at n. 8. On Ammianus' early popularity see Thompson (at n. 2) E. A. Thompson,The Historical Work of Ammianus Marcellinus (Cambridge 1947) xi, and J. MacKail, “Ammianus Marcellinus,”Journal of Roman Studies 10, 1920, 103 f.

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  23. The most important of the earlier studies were V. Gardthausen, “Die geographischen Quellen Ammians,”Fleckeisens Jahrbücher für classische Philologie (Suppl. 6, Leipzig 1873) 509–56; T. Mommsen, “Ammians Geographica,”Hermes 16, 1881, 602–36 (=id., V. Gardthausen, “Die geographischen Quellen Ammians,”Gesammelte Schriften VII [Berlin 1909] 393–425). Mommsen, it should be noted, appears to have had a rather higher opinion of Ammianus than was fashionable at the time (but see Thompson [at n. 2 above]The Historical Work of Ammianus Marcellinus (Cambridge 1947) 23 n. 1).

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  33. Thompson argues this especially forcefully in his exposition of Ammianus' biases in his treatment of Ursicinus and Gallus (chs. 3 and 4=pp. 42–71).

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    Roger Blockley

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This article is based on a paper prepared for the Third Meeting of the International Society for the Classical Tradition, held at Boston University, March 8–12, 1995. I wish to dedicate this paper to the memory of the late Professor E. A. Thompson, my doctoral supervisor.

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Blockley, R. Ammianus marcellinus and his classical background—Changing perspectives. International Journal of the Classical Tradition 2, 455–466 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02677884

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