Understanding Ammianus Marcellinus, Book by Book (original) (raw)

This article examines the now complete Philological and Historical Commentary on Ammianus Marcellinus, begun in the 1930s by Pieter de Jonge and completed in 2018 by J. den Boeft, J.W. Drijvers, D. den Hengst and H.C. Teitler. It starts with a detailed consideration of the final volume, the commentary on Book 31, and addresses aspects of it that reflect both the strengths and the weaknesses of the whole commentary series. From there, it concludes by surveying the most significant historical insights and the most essential historiographical discussions in the volumes produced by the final team of four editors, the so-called quadriga Batavorum.

Geographical Digressions in Ammianus Marcellinus

The increasing interest in the world of Late Antiquity over the past four or so decades has also included an intensified attention to what was probably the most important historian of the Later Roman Empire: Ammianus Marcellinus. The Res Gestae of Ammianus started where Tacitus had left off, that is in the year 96 C.E. with the reign of Nerva, and ended at the year 378. The work originally consisted of 31 books, but the first 13 books have unfortunately been lost. The 18 extant books cover only some twenty-five years of Roman history, namely the years from 353 to 378. Thus Ammianus wrote the history of his own time, of which he himself was not only a part but also an eyewitness, since he was present at several important events of this period. Above all, the reign of Julian (361-3) features conspicuously in the Res

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