page_title: Ammianus Marcellinus
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: Ammianus Marcellinus / Biography
caption_attribution_description: English: A bust of the Roman Emperor Constantius II from Syria. This object is today located in the collection of the University of Pennsylvania's Museum of Archaeology. Constantius II was the second of Constantine I's three sons and ruled the Roman Empire, sometimes in co-rulership with his 2 brothers, between 337 and 361 AD.
context_page_description: Ammianus Marcellinus was a Roman soldier and historian who wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from antiquity. 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 to 378 survive.
context_section_description: Ammianus was born in the Greek-speaking East, possibly in Syria or Phoenicia in 330. His native language was most likely Greek. The surviving books of his history cover the years 353 to 378.
  Ammianus served as an officer in the army of the emperors Constantius II and Julian, he served in Gaul (Julian) and in the east (twice for Constantius, once under Julian). 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. Ammianus campaigned in the East twice under Ursicinus.
  He travelled with Ursicinus to Italy when Ursicinus was called on 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. Ursicinus had one of his men assassinate Silvanus, restoring Gaul to Constantius. He then stayed in Gaul to help install Julian as Caesar of Gaul, Spain and Britain. Ammianus probably met Julian for the first time while serving on Ursicinus' staff in Gaul.
  In 359 Constantius sent Ursicinus back to the east to help in the defence against a Persian invasion led by king Shapur II himself. Ammianus returned with his commander to the East and again served Ursicinus as a staff officer. Ursicinus, although he was the more experienced commander, was placed under the command of Sabinianus, the Magister Peditum of the east. The two did not get along, resulting in a lack of cooperation between the Limitanei (border regiments) of Mesopotamia and Osrhoene under Ursicinus' command and the Comitatus (Field Army) of Sabinianus. While on a mission near Nisibis, Ammianus spotted a Persian patrol which was about to try and capture Ursicinus, he was able to warn his commander in time. In an attempt to locate the Persian Royal Army Ursicinus sent Ammianus to Jovinianus, the semi-independent governor of Corduene, and a friend of Ursicinus. Ammianus successfully located the Persian main body and reported his findings to Ursicinus.
  After his mission in Corduene Amminianus accompanied his commander when the latter rode out from his headquarters at Amida on a mission to make sure the bridges across the Euphrates were demolished. They were attacked by the Persian vanguard who had made a night march in an attempt to catch the Romans at Amida off guard. After a protracted cavalry battle the Romans were scattered, Ursicinus evaded capture and fled to Melitene while Ammianus barely made it back to Amida with a wounded comrade. The Persians started to besiege the city. When it fell Ammianus barely escaped with his life.
  When Ursicinus was dismissed from his military post by Constantius, 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 the 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.
   
  He eventually settled in Rome and began the Res Gestae. The precise year of his death is unknown, but scholarly consensus places it somewhere between 392 and 400 at the latest.
  Modern schol
caption: A bust of Emperor Constantius II from Syria.
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