22

GAVIN KELLY

Ammianus Marcellinus: Tacitus’ heir

and Gibbon’s guide

The extant books of Ammianus Marcellinus’ Res Gestae cover the deeds of
emperors and high officials in the quarter-century between 353 and 378 CE.
The work is adorned with all the apparatus of classical historiography: pre-
faces, digressions, set speeches, battles and sieges, treason trials, and natural
disasters. Yet for the historian of Latin historiography, or the compiler of a
companion to it, Ammianus is an awkward fit. Many general works on the
Roman historians stop over two and a half centuries earlier with Tacitus: a
fine climax, and an inept ending. One of the more notable twentieth-century
contributions to Ammianus scholarship, Edward Thompson’s The Historical
Work of Ammianus Marcellinus (1947), opens with the thought that “for
every reader of his work nowadays there are a thousand readers of Sallust,
Livy or Tacitus.”1 This was probably never true, and the vast expansion of
interest in the late Roman world ensures that scholarship on Ammianus is
now quite as hard to keep up with as on the other three great Roman
historians. But what was and remains true is that Ammianus is terra incognita
for most classicists, including many historiographical specialists.2
There are various reasons for this. Thompson’s explanation was stylistic
inferiority, and many others have turned Ammianus’ self-definition as a former
soldier and Greek (31.16.9) into an accusation of literary incompetence.3
This is to misjudge a startlingly original, remarkably affecting, and acutely
observant writer; but we can accept that the difficulty, not to say luridness,
of Ammianus’ prose has played its part, as has the ineradicable belief that
“good authors” are defined by linguistic classicism. More significantly,
Ammianus does not belong to a narrative. It is very hard to talk about the
development of history-writing after Tacitus, because so little secular Latin

1
Thompson 1947: xi.
2
This neglect is more characteristic of Anglophone than of continental European scholarship,
and there are worthy exceptions: Sir Ronald Syme moved from Tacitus and Sallust to writing
on Ammianus and the Historia Augusta; see also Marincola 1997.
3
Thompson 1947, xi, 121.

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literature, including history, survives from the period between the mid-second
and the mid-fourth centuries – a hiatus which of course presents a broader
problem for historians. In modern scholarship, both historical and literary,
one often feels that the fourth century of the Christian era represents a
different world to that of the first: scholars tend to cluster on either side of
the poorly attested third century, those at home in one period at sea in the
other. Ammianus’ thirteen lost books began where Tacitus’ Histories had
ended in 96 CE; had they survived, things might have been different.
The disassociation of the study of Ammianus from that of the other major
Roman historians is a loss on both sides. There are not so many examples
from antiquity of an intimately detailed grand-scale contemporary history
that it makes sense to ignore Ammianus’ methods or his theory of historio-
graphy.4 The study of his allusions to his historiographical predecessors has
focused on identification rather than interpretation. Regrettably, his work
has benefited little from recent advances in the understanding of ancient
historiography as literature (outstandingly exemplified by the Tacitean scho-
larship of Tony Woodman).5 In general, studies of Ammianus tend to be more
interested in him as our pre-eminent source for the second half of the fourth
century than as a writer. When he is judged as a historian, it is by his success
or failure in fulfilling modern rather than ancient expectations of that role.
This chapter examines Ammianus through his scholarly reception, by
critiquing two comparisons often made to another ancient and to a modern
historian. He is often called the “Heir of Tacitus.” That epithet is usually a
relatively unexamined value judgment rather than an assertion of particular
and identifiable influences.6 There are intertextual links and areas of fruitful
comparison between the two authors, but though a view of Ammianus within
the context of earlier Latin historiography is highly desirable, the excessive
focus on links with Tacitus has probably been a hindrance (first section, “The
heir of Tacitus,” below). Ammianus is much cited as a source for Edward
Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–88),
especially its portrayal of Julian the Apostate; this relationship merits
further analysis (second section, “Gibbon’s accurate and faithful guide,”
below), both because it helps to explain why Ammianus’ account of the late
fourth century has been found enduringly persuasive, and because recent
re-assessments of Ammianus’ reputation for impartiality suggest that he may

4
See on method Sabbah 1978; on theory Den Boeft 2007.
5
Kelly 2008 is an attempt to remedy this.
6
“How then does Ammianus compare with the best of the older imperial historians, that is, with
his model, Tacitus?” (Thompson 1947: 121). “The heir of Tacitus, in every sense, is Ammianus
Marcellinus” (Syme 1958a: 503 n. 8).

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be more Gibbonian – and Tacitean – than he sometimes seems (third section,

“The manipulative historian,” below).

The heir of Tacitus

The comparison of Tacitus and Ammianus is in many ways an inescapable
one. They are the only two surviving Latin historians who write the history of
recent times on remotely such a large scale.7 Scale – not to mention quality –
differentiates them from the likes of Velleius or Aurelius Victor (and little in
all ancient historiography compares in scale or quality to Tacitus’ three books
on the long year 69 or Ammianus’ three books on Julian’s Persian campaign
of 363); writing the history of the emperors crucially sets them apart from
Sallust and Livy.
They are even comparable in the number of books. We know from a late
antique source that Tacitus’ Annals and Histories circulated together in an
edition of thirty books;8 the transmitted book numbers tell us that Ammianus
wrote thirty-one, which has sometimes been seen as an attempt to go one
better than Tacitus. It has also been observed – speculatively in view of what is
lost, but plausibly – that both authors seem to have written in units of six
books. Certainly the surviving books of Ammianus fall easily into three
hexads (14–19, 20–5, 26–31); though the lost thirteen books do not divide
into six, Timothy Barnes has recently suggested that Ammianus may have
written thirty-six books, not thirty-one, and that the transmitted book num-
bers are out by five.9 The brief sphragis which closes the Res Gestae tells us
that Ammianus had originally started where Tacitus’ Histories had left off,
with the accession of Nerva in 96 CE. In postulating a relationship between
the two authors, this has been central. It is well known that ancient historical
authors often tried to assert their place in the canon by beginning at the point
where their predecessors had stopped.10 The thought that Ammianus saw
himself as at least formally continuing the work of Tacitus receives some
support from a couple of echoes in the sphragis (31.16.9) of the preface of the
Histories. These allusions are not, it should be acknowledged, obvious, or
even the most obvious allusions in the sphragis.11

7
A very selective bibliography may highlight Wölfflin 1870, Blockley 1973, Neumann 1987,
Matthews 1989: 482–3, Fornara 1992, Williams 1997.
8 9
Jerome, Ad Zach. 3.14. See, e.g., Syme 1958: 253; Barnes 1998: 20–31.
10
For the phenomenon see Marincola 1997: 289–91.
11
“opus ueritatem professum / numquam, ut arbitror, sciens / silentio ausus corrumpere uel menda-
cio / . . . quos id, si libuerit, aggressuros . . .” (31.16.9) ~ “incorruptam fidem professis . . . opus
aggredior opimum casibus” (Tacitus Hist. 1.1, 1.2) (“it is a work which claims truthfulness and

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The places where Ammianus has been argued to allude to Tacitus probably
number in the low hundreds; however, the great majority cannot be accepted
as more than parallels. Often we have historiographical commonplaces which
could be matched equally well or better in Sallust or Livy, or poetic expres-
sions which could equally well come from Vergil.12 Some verbal con-
gruences certainly seem beyond coincidence, like that between the opening
of Ammianus’ Book 22 and Tacitus Histories 2, each a scene change opening
a book and a reign; but this does not seem part of a larger allusive pattern.13
No allusion to Tacitus is remotely as blatant as the allusion to Sallust when
the usurper Procopius is described.14 There is no convincing evidence of
larger-scale modelling of scenes, speeches, or characterizations on Tacitus
(contrast the echo of Sallust’s Letter of Pompeius [Hist. 2.98.1] at 17.9.4–5).15
The pair Constantius and Julian may remind us of Tiberius and Germanicus,
but textual support is simply lacking. And though a few of Ammianus’ very
abundant exempla come from the period covered by Tacitus, it is nowhere
demonstrable or even likely that he is the source.
The belief in Tacitus as a principal model for Ammianus exalts a “great
books” view of historiography over empirical data; it also fails to consider the
literature we have lost. An ancient reader who laid aside the (lost) latter books
of Tacitus’ Histories and picked up the (lost) early books of Ammianus would
not necessarily have seen great continuity: the Histories, covering twenty-
seven years in (probably) twelve books, were strikingly denser than the lost
books of the Res Gestae, covering 255 years in thirteen books. Underlying
belief in the special influence of Tacitus on Ammianus is the assumption that
Latin historiography was a long-neglected genre when Ammianus revived it,
and that Tacitus was the only obvious model. But the fact that we know little
of any Latin historical works in the period between the two authors (as
opposed to biographies, epitomes, or histories in Greek) does not mean that
no such histories were ever written or read; Ammianus’ continuation of

which, so I think, I have never knowingly dared to warp with silence or falsehood . . . those who
would embark on this, if it please them . . .” ~ “for those who claim unwarped fidelity . . . I embark
on a work fertile in disasters.” On the intertextuality of this passage see Blockley 1998, Paschoud
2004, and Kelly 2007. The standard text of Ammianus is Seyfarth 1978, 1999. I indicate
Ammianus’ regular clausulae, which are a considerable aid to understanding, by hastae (/): the
last two stressed syllables are separated by either two or four unstressed syllables.
12
E.g., 31.7.16 ~ Verg. Aen. 12.35–6 ~ Tac. Ann. 1.61.2, discussed by Kelly 2008: 16, 19–21.
13
“Dum haec in diuersa parte terrarum / Fortunae struunt uolubiles casus, / Iulianus . . .”
(22.1.1) ~ “Struebat iam fortuna in diuersa parte terrarum initia causasque imperio”
(Tacitus Hist. 2.1.1).
14
“Ad hoc igitur dehonestamentum honorum omnium ludibriose sublatus / et ancillari adula-
tione beneficii adlocutus auctores,” 26.6.16 ~ “Fufidius, ancilla turpis, honorum omnium
dehonestamentum,” Sallust Hist. 1.55.22.
15
Though see Williams 1997. On the Sallust allusion see Kelly 2008: 211–12.

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Tacitus only implies the desire to supersede such histories, not their non-
existence. And it is also important to avoid the preconception that Tacitus’
role in Latin historiography was equivalent to that of Vergil in poetry, or that
he was as obvious a literary model in late antiquity as he became in early
modern Europe.
The search for continuities from Tacitus may blind us to the contrasts.
Neither Tacitus (in the surviving books) nor any other previous historian
has anything like Ammianus’ remarkably vivid passages of memoir, which
recount with deceptive frankness the perilous adventures of his youth.16 Both
authors are masters of characterization, but in different ways. Ammianus
has no single figure to match Tiberius, but individuals even briefly mentioned
(and it is worth remembering that Ammianus has 480 characters in his
eighteen extant books17) are memorably distinguished; Tacitus has no minor
character to match Petronius Probus, the aristocratic Praetorian Prefect who
darts between bullying, cowardice, and valetudinarianism (27.11). Sententiae
play a far smaller part: though Ammianus’ description of Constantius II’s
eunuch chamberlain Eusebius is as fine as any in Tacitus (“apud quem, si uere
dici debeat, multa Constantius potuit,” “with whom, if the truth be told,
Constantius had a great deal of influence,” 18.4.3), it is also more labored.
Tacitus could never have used a simile like that which marks Eusebius’
whispering campaign against Ammianus’ boss Ursicinus (18.4.4):

qui ut coluber copia uirus exuberans / natorum multitudinem etiamtum aegre

serpentium / excitans ad nocendum, / emittebat cubicularios iam adultos, / ut
inter ministeria uitae secretioris / gracilitate uocis semper puerilis et blandae /
apud principis aures nimium patulas / existimationem uiri fortis inuidia graui
pulsarent.

Like a serpent overflowing with excessive venom, who arouses its multitude
of children, who have still barely learnt to creep, to doing harm, he kept sending
forth grown chamberlains, so that while performing more personal duties they
might, with the charm of their voices, always boyish and pleasant, to the emper-
or’s overly gaping ears, batter the reputation of a brave man with serious envy.

A search for links with Tacitus may also blind us to other influences.
Ammianus was a native Greek speaker, and shows it in his frequent use and
glosses of learned Greek vocabulary. Lengthy digressions are dotted through

16
Particularly notable are 15.5.22–31 (the suppression of the usurper Silvanus) and 18.4.1–
19.8.12 (the Persian invasion of 359 CE). For a reinterpretation of these passages see Kelly
2008: 31–103.
17
The number is a reflection of the considerable growth of the bureaucracy in the fourth century;
see Frakes 2000.

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his work: it seems likely that, when the work was complete, the geography of
the whole empire was covered (and it is worth remarking here that his
geographical range is wider even than Tacitus’, doubtless reflecting contem-
porary geopolitics), and perhaps the whole oikoumene;18 he also presents
natural phenomena like earthquake, plague, eclipses, and rainbows. In this
feature, unparalleled in its extent, he is far closer to the Greek than to the
Roman tradition of historiography. But attempts to over-emphasize the
Greek heritage of his work tend to make the same mistake as over-privileging
Tacitus, or (the most recent suggestion) seeing him as an exponent of
Ciceronian historiography.19 Ammianus was an unusually voracious reader,
is an unusually comprehensive historian, and embodies an unusually wide
range of influences. Comparison with Tacitus is not fruitless (as I shall suggest
in the third section, “The manipulative historian,” below), but it is very far
from a full description or explanation for his work.

Gibbon’s accurate and faithful guide

It is not without the most sincere regret, that I must now take leave of an
accurate and faithful guide, who has composed the history of his own times,
without indulging the prejudices and passions, which usually affect the mind of
a contemporary. Ammianus Marcellinus, who terminates his useful work with
the defeat and death of Valens, recommends the more glorious subject of the
ensuing reign to the youthful vigour and eloquence of the rising generation. The
rising generation was not disposed to accept his advice or to imitate his
example. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ii.xxvi.1073–4

Shortly before the end of his second volume, Gibbon pays tribute to the
historian whom he follows for longer and more closely in his work than
any other. If Tacitus had been the writer who fulfilled Gibbon’s ideal of the
philosopher historian, Ammianus approaches him in esteem and dominates a
far larger swathe of the Decline and Fall.20 The period covered by Ammianus,
for which he is unquestionably seen as the principal source, occupies
Chapters 19 and 22–6 in the second volume (1781), though there are also a

18
Mommsen 1881.
19
Ammianus’ Greek heritage: Matthews 1989: 452–72; Barnes 1998: 65–78 and passim.
Cicero: Blockley 1998, 2001.
20
“Je ne connois que Tacite qui ait rempli mon idée de cet historien philosophe” (Gibbon 1761,
ch. 56); “Tacitus, the first of historians who applied the science of philosophy to the study of
facts” (Gibbon 1776–88, i.ix.230). Citations of The Decline and Fall give volume number of
the original edition, chapter number, and page number in the edition of Womersley (1995).
Most scholarship on Gibbon focuses on the influences of contemporary intellectual thought
rather than those of his ancient sources, but on Gibbon and Ammianus see Bowersock 1977,
Womersley 1988: 169–81, and Matthews 1997.

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number of references in the first volume (1776) and the third volume (also
1781). Source criticism was perhaps Gibbon’s weakest point, and he had a
tendency, when he could, to choose a main source and to base himself upon it
with necessary supplements.21 Ammianus is such a source: fulsome tributes
mingle with stylistic censures. Gibbon has often been cited in comparison to
Ammianus because he provided a familiar entrée (one suspects that the
Decline and Fall is less read now than in the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries). Still, the value of the comparison endures, because Gibbon was an
acute reader of Ammianus, and his approach had a significant influence on
the latter’s reception in later generations of scholarship: indeed we are only
beginning to see past it. Gibbon’s Ammianus – and the Ammianus of many of
his successors – is a remarkable source, and a remarkably even-handed
historian, but one whose literary pretensions are often to be condemned.
Gibbon’s reading of Ammianus was close and scholarly. Though Glen
Bowersock has pointed out a couple of instances where he seems to take
elements of his translation from the French of the Abbé de la Bléterie’s Vie de
Julien, Gibbon himself generally acknowledged such inspiration.22 He seems
to have used Gronovius’ edition of 1693, which collected the work of earlier
commentators, above all the brilliant notes of Henri de Valois, or Valesius
(1636). Gibbon read Ammianus through Valesius: he borrowed or chased up
references, used him to correct chronological errors, and occasionally praised
or argued with him explicitly.23 But Ammianus’ influence did not come only
at the level of providing information. Ammianus is also a linguistic model,
and not only for epigrams, or in set passages like the adaptation of the Roman
digressions:24 abundant passages of narrative offer adorned translations
of the Res Gestae.25 Arguably, he is also at certain points a structural
model. For the joint reign of Valentinian and Valens in the last six books
(26–31), Ammianus changed from the largely annalistic method he had
hitherto deployed to depicting activities in various regions over several
years. In Chapter 25, Gibbon adopts the same method, “a separate view of
the five great theatres of war,” and in announcing this plan brings together a
number of ideas taken from Ammianus: that the vigor of barbarian attacks
was renewed because Julian, whom they had feared, was dead (cf. 25.4.14,
27.1.1); that the whole period was one of attacks from every direction
(cf. 26.4.5–6); and that “perhaps the method of annals would more forcibly
express the urgent and divided cares of the two emperors; but the attention of

21
See, e.g., Bowersock 1977: 194–5.
22
Bowersock 1977: 202; see, e.g., Gibbon 1776–88: ii.xxiv.944 n. 95.
23
Gibbon 1776–88: ii.xxiv.911 n. 7. 24 14.6 and 28.4 ~ Gibbon 1776–88: iii.xxxi.174–81.
25
See Kelly 2008: 15 for one example.

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the reader, likewise, would be distracted by a tedious and desultory narra-

tive.”26 If linguistically not close, the sense perfectly echoes Ammianus’ stated
intention to describe eastern and western events separately, “ne dum ex loco
subinde saltuatim redire festinamus in locum, omnia confundentes squaliditate
maxima rerum ordines implicemus” (“in case, while we hasten with ceaseless
bounds to come back from one place to another, we confound everything and
shroud the succession of events in the greatest dinginess,” 26.5.15).
Gibbon illustrates his use of Ammianus with an array of epithets. The
“accurate and faithful guide” is also “the impartial Ammianus,” “the philo-
sophic soldier, who loved the virtues, without adopting the prejudices, of
his master,” “the modest and judicious historian.”27 If “philosophic” repre-
sented Gibbon’s historical ideal,28 impartiality (which is attributed fourteen
times to Ammianus)29 is another epithet which Gibbon himself repeatedly
emphasizes as his own aim and contrasts to the partiality and credulity of
other historians, ancient and modern. I shall look at Ammianus’ “imparti-
ality” alongside two other closely connected strategies by which Gibbon
emphasises his source’s credentials: his role as a spectator and his artistic
shortcomings.
When Gibbon attributes impartiality to Ammianus in specific rather than
general terms, it has two distinct features. It is usually a middle way, or a
casting vote, between two rival viewpoints which are decidedly partisan, and
the nature of that partisanship is very often religious. On Julian’s actions as a
judge in the summer of 362, Ammianus had “impartially stated the merits and
defects of his judicial proceedings”; Gibbon goes on to contrast the favorable
testimony of the pagan Libanius and the unfavorable testimony of the bishop
Gregory Nazianzen.30 Elsewhere, using two Christian writers, Gregory and
Epiphanius, to condemn George, the bigoted Arian bishop of Alexandria,
Gibbon remarks that “the invectives of the two saints might not deserve much
credit, unless they were confirmed by the testimony of the cool and impartial
infidel.”31
A second means of promoting Ammianus’ reliability is Gibbon’s emphasis
on his participation and his proximity to events. Ammianus had of course
been involved in a number of significant events in the history of his time, and
described them in unusually detailed narratives.32 Gibbon refers to some of
these, but is keen also to emphasize Ammianus’ autopsy at other points in the

26
Gibbon 1776–88: ii.xxv.988.
27
Gibbon 1776–88: ii.xviii.645 n. 5, xxxiii.890–1, xxiv.946 n. 100. 28 See n. 20 above.
29
Gibbon 1776–88: ii.xviii.645 n. 5, xix.685 n. 8, 686, xxi.793, xxii.852 n. 50, 861 n. 83,
xxiii.864, 877, 901 n. 119, xxiv.947 n. 103, xxv.977 n. 58, 987, xxvi.1060 n. 87, 1063 n. 91.
30
Gibbon 1776–88: ii.xxii.861 n. 83. 31 Gibbon 1776–88: ii.xxiii.901 n. 119.
32
See n. 16 above.

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text where it is not explicitly asserted. Ammianus makes it clear that he served
on the Persian campaign of Julian in 363, but not in what capacity: for
Gibbon it was clear that Ammianus was a witness of the death of Julian
and the magnificent speech which preceded it. When Jovian was elected the
following day, Gibbon identifies an anonymous soldier, whom Ammianus
described intervening in the debate, with the historian himself.33 When
Ammianus described the battlefield of Ad Salices from the Gothic War as
“even now whitening with bones” (31.7.16), Gibbon infers autopsy and
supposes that “the historian might have viewed these plains, either as a
soldier, or as a traveller.”34
Thirdly, Gibbon’s praise of Ammianus’ reliability is paired with a condem-
nation of his writing. A second passage of farewell bears this out: “We might
censure the vices of his style, the disorder and perplexity of his narrative:
but we must now take our leave of this impartial historian; and reproach is
silenced by our regret for such an irreparable loss.”35 Gibbon’s attitude
doubtless derived in part from his lapses from classical expectations of
grammar and vocabulary,36 but Ammianus’ vividly metaphorical use of
language was also an object of dislike: “such is the bad taste of Ammianus,
that it is often hard to distinguish his facts from his metaphors,” “it is only one
of those turgid metaphors, those false ornaments, that perpetually disfigure
the style of Ammianus.”37 It is striking, however, that Ammianus’ literary
incompetence is often turned into a guarantee of his reliability. One of Julian’s
speeches on the Persian campaign is esteemed as “original and genuine.
Ammianus might hear, could transcribe, and was incapable of inventing
it.”38 When describing the Roman magic and treason trials of the 370s,
Gibbon contrasts Ammianus’ narrative to similar scenes in Tacitus, which
aroused “the most lively sensations of terror, of admiration, and of pity. The
coarse and undistinguishing pencil of Ammianus has delineated his bloody
figures with tedious and disgusting accuracy.”39
Gibbon’s use of Ammianus should be seen within the chronological context
of the Decline and Fall’s composition. It seems likely that his approach
was influenced by the public reaction to his often sarcastic treatment of
Christianity in the first volume of 1776, which manifested itself in a flurry
of publications. Gibbon answered his critics triumphantly in the famous

33
Gibbon 1776–88: ii.xxiv.946 n. 100.
34
Gibbon 1776–88: ii.xxvi.1057 n. 82. 35 Gibbon 1776–88: ii.xxvi.1063 n. 91.
36
Matthews 1997: 29–32. 37 Gibbon 1776–88: ii.xxvi.1023 n. 1, 1056 n. 81.
38
24.3.4–7; Gibbon 1776–88: ii.xxiv.931 n. 63. The same assumption is made of Julian’s
deathbed speech (ii.xxiv.944 n. 95): Gibbon assumes that this magnificent composition
must have been composed in advance by Julian, rather than invented by Ammianus.
39
Gibbon 1776–88: ii.xxv.976.

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Vindication of 1779, but this was only his most visible response;40 revisions
to the text of the relevant chapters were used to reinforce his arguments or
tone down his invective;41 and it would be absurd to imagine that the con-
troversy did not also make him pre-empt similar attacks on Volumes ii and
iii. In particular, an outright enemy of Christianity would be expected to
heroize Julian, as Montesquieu and Voltaire had done. Gibbon, who had a
genuine loathing of bigotry, could use Ammianus to describe the problems
created by Christianity without appearing its enemy. For the period as a
whole, but in particular for Julian, Ammianus, with a pre-existing reputation
for religious tolerance, was immensely helpful to Gibbon. He could serve as
a surrogate for the author, a writer who could be given all the epithets –
“impartial,” “judicious,” “philosophic” – which Gibbon identified with his
own historiographical role. He could be shown repeatedly as steering a
middle path between other sources, not only showing up their pagan or
Christian partisanship, but also frequently bettering them on the grounds that
he was a spectator of events. Gibbon adopted what was essentially Ammianus’
view of Julian: that he was an outstanding individual and fine emperor, but
flawed, not least in his religious excesses. His stylistic condemnation played a
role as well: it is natural that in a textual relationship as close as that between
Ammianus and Gibbon sometimes is, the imitating author should find ways of
emphasizing his distinctness.

The manipulative historian

Mr Gibbon shews, it is true, so strong a dislike to Christianity, as visibly dis-

qualifies him for that society, of which he has created Ammianus Marcellinus
president. Richard Porson, Letters to Mr. Archdeacon Travis (1790), xvii42

The use and praise of Ammianus could not significantly revise Gibbon’s
popular reputation as a hostile critic of Christianity. Gibbon’s characteriza-
tion of Ammianus, however, was little challenged: it prefigured, and in some
areas probably created, approaches which have been common for the last two
centuries, especially in English-speaking scholarship. If few have been quite
as scathing as Gibbon on matters of style, particularly recently, other ele-
ments of his picture remain. Ammianus’ status as an observant spectator of
events, which he so carefully encouraged by the apparent frankness of his

40
Gibbon 1779. 41 See Womersley 2002: ch. 1.
42
Porson alludes to the Vindication (Gibbon 1779: 110–11). There Gibbon remarks on how
few historians “since the origin of Theological Factions . . . have deserved the singular praise
of holding the balance with a steady and equal hand.” He lists “Ammianus Marcellinus,
Fra-Paolo, Thuanus, Hume, and perhaps a few others.” See Barnes 1998: 2–4.

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autobiographical passages, is still cherished; his narrative is still scoured for

covert autobiography. The authors of the two most important studies of the
last twenty years, John Matthews and Timothy Barnes, have many differences
on Ammianus’ reliability, but both make the author’s life the key to his work
(an approach I have challenged elsewhere).43 Though Gibbon doubtless
did much to reinforce it, Ammianus’ reputation for impartiality, especially
in religion, pre-dates him: Claude Chifflet, his first early modern biographer,
even thought Ammianus a Christian. And though nobody else made that mis-
take, from Valesius down to John Matthews he has been generally considered
remarkably tolerant, “midway between religions,” a “pagan monotheist.”44
There have long been isolated challenges to this picture: the most powerful,
comprehensive, and effective has been articulated by Timothy Barnes.45
He concludes that Ammianus’ apparent fairness to Christianity is a feint,
and that he was in fact a militant pagan.46 The arguments on which this
conclusion is based are in my view unanswerable, but far from obvious: if
Ammianus is hostile to Christianity, he has done his best to seem fair.
Ammianus criticizes the religious policies of the only pagan emperor of the
period; yet on other aspects of government he is overwhelmingly favorable
to Julian and generally critical of Christian rulers (including Constantine, it is
clear from cross-references). High officials who are praised tend to be pagans
and those criticized, Christians – though the correlation often breaks down.47
But hostility to Christianity must principally be identified in silences, juxta-
positions, and coded language. Failure to mention Christian motivations or
ecclesiastical interventions in politics which we infer or know about from
other sources may of course have other explanations than malice: ignorance,
or a genuine belief in their irrelevance to his genre. In some cases, what
Ammianus has been accused of suppressing could very well be the invention
of later authors (the possibility that Jovian’s Christianity was a central factor
in his accession after Julian’s death, for example).48 However, while the
omission of details of synods or doctrinal debates is indeed appropriate to
Ammianus’ genre, his silences are sometimes rather too loud (the fact that he
says nothing of Jovian’s reversal of most of Julian’s religious policies). Some
events are narrated without the religious motivations which make sense of
them (the religious discord Julian stirred up in Antioch in 362, the politics of
Armenia in the 370s). In these cases ignorance cannot be argued (a recent

43
Kelly 2008: 104–58.
44
See Rike 1987: 1–7 for a survey. 45 Barnes 1998: 79–94 and passim.
46
Barnes, it should be said, is a scholar with a track record of emphasizing the political
significance of Christianization, when scholarly fashion is to nuance or reduce it.
47
See Barnes 1998: 113–19, with Kelly 2008: 152–3.
48
See von Haehling 1976, Lenski 2000.

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study has made a strong case for use of a church historian as a source).49
Another strong indication of Ammianus’ attitudes is his use of vocabulary
which comparisons to other authors suggest is polemical: his association of
Constantine with the growth of “softness,” for example.
The same difficulty of interpretation afflicts the passages where Ammianus
appears to praise Christianity. When Bishop George of Alexandria and his
allies were lynched in 361, their bodies were carried to the shore on camels,
burnt, and the ashes thrown into the sea. This was done “in case their remains
were gathered together and temples erected for them, as for the others who,
compelled to abandon their religion, endured torturous punishments and
advanced with unshaken faith to a glorious death, and are now called mar-
tyrs” (22.11.10). Superficially Ammianus seems, if anything, complimentary
towards martyrs, and the standard commentary observes the linguistic simila-
rities to Christian praise of martyrdom.50 And yet, as he has just delineated
George’s villainy, he reminds us of the standard pagan attack on the cult of the
martyrs as the worship of criminals. Certainly Gibbon found this passage an
opening to a fine conceit, if of dubious scholarly worth. The mob’s precautions
were vain: “The odious stranger, disguising every circumstance of time and
place, assumed the mask of a martyr, a saint, and a Christian hero; and the
infamous George of Cappadocia has been transformed into the renowned
St. George of England, the patron of arms, of chivalry, and of the garter.”51
Another passage which has been used to argue both for Ammianus’ open-
mindedness to Christianity and for his depreciation of it comes in 360 CE,
when the Persian king Sapor II was besieging the city of Bezabde on the Tigris
(20.7.7–9). After several days of bloodshed on both sides, the bishop of the
city gestured from the walls to ask for a parley; he sermonized in vain about
avoiding further bloodshed, and the irascible Sapor vowed to remain until he
had taken the city:

But some suspicion fell on the bishop, baseless in my view, though spread by
the affirmation of many, that in his secret discussions he had told Sapor which
parts of the walls to attack, as being fragile and weak inside. And this subse-
quently seemed plausible, because after his visit the enemy siege-machines kept
aiming at and hitting the places which were unsafe and tottering from decay,
with great shouts of joy as though those managing them knew about the inside
of the city. (20.7.9)

Does this passage show Ammianus defending the bishop against a slander?
Or does it show him letting out a rumor which discredited the bishop,

49
Bleckmann 2007, developing Kelly 2004.
50
Den Boeft et al. ad 22.11.10. 51 Gibbon 1776–88: ii.xxiii.902–3.

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 gavin kelly

developing its plausibility, but failing to take responsibility for it?52 It is

hardly safe to build an argument on such a passage. My own instincts tend
to the latter theory, both because of details of the language of the passage,
and because of Ammianus’ technique with other topics where anti-Christian
polemic is not directly at issue. What is most important about Barnes’
arguments is not that Ammianus is exposed as an enemy of Christianity,
though it becomes even more apparent why his striving to seem impartial
and balanced (by a rejection of extreme or untenable positions which we
might call “triangulation”) appealed so much to Gibbon. Rather, that
Ammianus is shown to be a manipulative historian, one sedulous to guar-
antee his reception as an “accurate and faithful guide,” yet also remarkably
capable of developing prejudices in his readers. His polemical treatment of
Jovian is a case in point. Attacking his surrender of Nisibis to the Persians,
Ammianus calls Jovian a young man whom it would not be right to blame or
praise (25.9.7). Shortly afterwards, he ends a catalog of examples by point-
ing out how in Republican times the Romans repudiated such surrenders
and handed over the general responsible to the enemy, as with Mancinus at
Numantia (25.9.11). The implication, that this should have happened to
Jovian, is sharply at odds with the supposed lack of blame, and escapes the
notice of most scholars, including the authors of the standard commentary.
It did not escape Gibbon.53
Timothy Barnes explains the tale of the Bishop of Bezabde as follows:
“Ammianus chose to include the story because he had learnt from Tacitus
how to use rumors to suggest disreputable conduct or a dishonest motive
while taking no authorial responsibility for the dubious information thus
conveyed.”54 The passing mention of Tacitus is the product of instinct
rather than argument, but seems to me apt and insightful. The influence
suggested would merit further study. It may well be that it is for Ammianus’
capacity to use rumor, third-party personas, and allusive techniques to
manipulate his readers, while seeming not to, that it is most just to call
him Tacitus’ heir.

Further reading
Those wanting to study Ammianus’ debt to Tacitus will find much raw
material collected in Neumann’s 1987 dissertation; a broader impression of
intertextual relationships can be gained from Kelly 2008, esp. ch. 4, from
Sabbah 1978, or by perusing the authoritative series of philological and

52
See Matthews 1989: 436, Barnes 1998: 87–8.
53 54
Den Boeft et al. ad loc.; Gibbon 1776–88: ii.xxiv.954. Barnes 1998: 88.

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 Ammianus Marcellinus

historical commentaries by Den Boeft, Den Hengst, Teitler and Drijvers

(1987-2008), which currently cover Books 20–6. Distinguished ancient his-
torians have made observations on Gibbon’s relationship to Ammianus and
other sources for the period: for example, Bowersock 1977, Matthews 1997,
and various places in Barnes 1998. For the perspective of a Gibbon scholar,
see Womersley 1988, esp. 169–81.

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