The Historians of Late Antiquity (28 page)

Ammianus not only portrays himself in the role of a soldier in history, but adopts the title of soldier as a qualification for his role as historian in the last line of his history (31.16.9). In this same line he also states that he is a Greek as a further qualification. Elsewhere, too, he makes his Greekness known (e.g. 20.3.4, 23.6.20, 25.2.5), often in digressions, where he exploits the superior reputation of the Greeks in antiquarian knowledge. Ammianus also makes a pointed reference to his high social standing (19.8.6), a traditional guarantor of character and historical ability, especially among Latin historians.

Aurelius Victor provides an atypical self-portrait during his discussion of Septimius Severus (20.5). Victor describes himself as the son of a poor man who has gained success through education. This suggests that the historian saw his audience as composed of other imperial functionaries who similarly valued education and social mobility over noble birth.

Sozomen discusses his family in order to provide a Christianized version of noble birth (5.15.14). He boasts of his Christian grandfather, who was learned in Scripture and was forced to flee Bethelia during the persecutions under Julian. Sozomen’s claim that he does not fully understand the reasoning of heretics like Eunomius and Apollinaris may also be understood as an attempt to improve the perception of his character in the eyes of his Christian audience. His intellectual credentials may be weakened, but he suggests that his personal piety is so strong that he is unable to even comprehend the works of the heterodox.

Speeches, letters, and documents

From the beginning, classical historians had included speeches delivered by their subjects. Speeches in ancient history are presented directly, as if they represent a verbatim transcript of the words spoken. In reality, of course, without recording technology, such speeches could be only approximations of what was actually said. In addition, it is clear that some historians allowed themselves some latitude in their presentation of speeches, and understood their responsibility to be the presentation of the sort of speech a historical figure might have been expected to deliver rather than the closest approximation to words that were actually spoken.

Lengthy speeches were an ornament to a history in the high style in a culture where attending an oratorical performance was a common form of entertainment. The summary works of Victor, Eutropius, and Festus, therefore, omit speeches altogether. Because the histories of Eunapius, Olympiodorus, and Priscus have come down to us in similarly reduced forms, the full extent of these historians’ uses of speeches cannot be known. Eunapius’ love of rhetoric and the preservation of one pair of speeches suggest that the historian had made frequent use of the device. In these surviving speeches, a barbarian king speaks and then hears the response of Julian (
fr
. 18.6). The surely ahistorical words of the king of the Chamavi amount to a reflection on the nature of fatherhood and kingship. Eunapius uses Julian’s response to characterize him as noble and just. The enthusiastic response of the barbarians to Julian’s words further emphasizes the power of his speech. Priscus, too, who is referred to as a “rhetor” by several ancient sources, probably included many more speeches in his history than survive in our excerpts. We have a speech which Priscus claims to have delivered himself in defense of the Roman system against a Greco-Hunniccritic
(
fr
. 11). Like the speech provided by Eunapius, Priscus’ speech also has a philosophical tone. The practice of Olympiodorus, however, is not as clear. As the writer of “material for history” rather than a full, formal history, he may have eschewed ornaments like speeches. On the other hand, other ancient works which present themselves as merely material to be used for a more elaborated form of history, such as Caesar’s
Gallic Wars
, do contain formal speeches.

Although Ammianus is in many ways the most self-consciously classicizing of the late antique historians, he does not use speeches as often or in as varied a manner as did many of his classical predecessors. Of the dozen or so speeches which Ammianus presents, almost every one is spoken by a general to his troops, either to encourage them before battle or to introduce to them a newly appointed holder of imperial power. Imperial speeches almost always result in approval from the soldiers. In Julian’s case, the soldiers show their enthusiasm after his speech before the Battle of Strasbourg (16.12.9–12), upon his acceptance of the title of Augustus (20.5.3–7), before crossing into Persian territory (23.5.16–23), and after mollifying mutinous soldiers by assuring them that they would soon possess the wealth of the Persians (24.3.3–7). The exception to these cases is the hostile reaction of the soldiers to Julian’s brief attempt to refuse the title of Augustus (20.4.16), which serves to bolster Ammianus’ contention that Julian was compelled to accept the promotion.

Despite the criticism which Ammianus generally expresses of Constantius, the emperor’s speeches are as elegant and as well received as those of Julian. Even Constantius’ denunciation of Julian’s usurpation results in uniform support in Ammianus’ telling (21.13.10–15), and before Constantius’ speech celebrating his conquest of the Sarmatians, Ammianus notes that he was received favorably “as usual” (17.13.26–33). Only after a speech by Constantius in which he explains to the men his decision to make peace with the enemy does Ammianus provide the unflattering observation that Constantius’ general lack of success in foreign wars influenced the opinion of the army (14.10.11–16). Nevertheless, the army is still described as unanimous and full of praise for the emperor.

The only extended speech in Ammianus which is not given by a general before his troops is the speech of Julian on his deathbed (25.3.15–20). The scene, which is purposely composed to suggest parallels between the emperor and Socrates, reveals Julian’s nobility in his high-minded reflections on the state and on his own career.
This speech is received by Julian’s tearful associates, whom the emperor rebukes as did Socrates to his similarly weeping companions at the conclusion of the
Phaedo
.

Church history as a rule avoids speeches. Instead, the narrative flow of a church history is broken up by the insertion of original documents, particularly letters from church councils or emperors. Original documents appeared very rarely in classical historiography. While Ammianus does present a pair of letters exchanged by Constantius and the Persian king Shapur, these are not given as original documents, but are rather reworked by the historian and function as speeches in the narrative (17.5). Ecclesiastical historians, however, take their cue from Eusebius’ history, which seems to have begun as a collection of documents with commentary, and was only later fleshed out with the kind of narrative we consider integral to history.

Rufinus deviates from the Eusebian tradition and provides only one document, the Nicene Creed (10.6). Rufinus’ work is far more rhetorical than that of the Greek church historians. In his illustration of the victory of orthodoxy over paganism and heresy, the details of doctrine are less important than the evidence that God’s presence continues to favor the church. With the triumph of Theodosius at the end of the work, heresy has ceased to be a problem, and thus the study of doctrinal disputes is no longer necessary for the reader.

Although Socrates and Sozomen both praise the peace within the church brought by Theodosius II in their own day, neither suggests that Christian factionalism has been put to rest. Thus Socrates, for example, provides information on heresy, because it will help the reader avoid error in the future (1.18.16). The preface to Socrates’ second book suggests that he had originally only summarized documents, following the style of Rufinus, but that in his second edition he had inserted the original documents into the work. Socrates’ work is particularly thick with documents in the first two books, during which he is especially dependent on the collection made by Sabinus. Later books of Socrates, by contrast, contain very few documents. Sozomen claims to have collected documentary evidence from palaces, churches, and private collections (1.1.13). Some of his documents are taken from Socrates, but many are not. Like Socrates, he provides hardly any contemporary documents, perhaps because these would have been more readily available elsewhere to those who wished to see them. At one point Sozomen explains that the reproduction of documents was generally
welcome because of their usefulness for future generations, but that wise men had counselled him to refrain from including certain documents for fear that the unbaptized might read them (1.20.3). This concern does not recur in Sozomen nor in the other church historians, and what Sozomen and his advisors feared to reveal remains a mystery.

Theodoret’s work was perhaps inspired by the doctrinal disputes in which he himself was embroiled in the 430s and 440s. The historian’s work is both more didactically focused on the “Arian” heresy and its successors than are the more variegated works of Socrates and Sozomen. Theodoret also provides less of the contemporary history which had yielded fewer documents in the works of Socrates and Sozomen. Perhaps for these reasons there is a greater density of documentary material in Theodoret’s history. His first two books, in particular, are little more than lists of documents with occasional narration to link them together. In this way Theodoret manages to blur the line between history and antiquarian collection, and to turn the genre back to its roots in the first editions of Eusebius’
Ecclesiastical History
.

14
GOVERNMENT

The emperor

The power of the emperor was theoretically supreme in late antiquity. At the end of the third century, the emperor Diocletian had attempted to set up a system in which two senior emperors, or “Augusti,” would rule, one in the east and one in the west. The two Augusti would then nominate two junior emperors, “Caesars,” who would eventually succeed them. This system sought to solve two problems that plagued the empire in the third century. First, the empire was too large to be effectively governed by one man, and second, the lack of a fixed rule of succession led to frequent turmoil and civil war. Diocletian’s system failed to prevent the civil wars which erupted even during his lifetime. Multiple emperors needed multiple armies to meet threats throughout the empire, but the existence of multiple armies often led to conflict.

A more enduring innovation of Diocletian was what has been called the “sacralization” of the emperor. The elevation of the late antique emperor to divine status represented, perhaps, yet another attempt to discourage civil war. The emperor was garbed in silk and jewels, and was kept apart from his subjects by a large body of court officials and by elaborate court ceremonial. As Christopher Kelly has noted, however, despite this newer imperial image there remained the older ideologies which demanded that an emperor be merely the “first citizen,” or that he eschew ostentatious display as a “philosopher king” (Kelly 1998: 138–50). The tension between these competing theories of kingship is frequently palpable in the historians of the fourth and fifth centuries.

The
breviaria
, in comparing earlier emperors with contemporary ones, confront these competing images of the ideal emperor explicitly. Victor’s history and values are generally traditional, and his formula for the good emperor combines good morals with a liberal
education (8.7–8; Bird 1984: 24–9). The historian does not deny or challenge the supremacy of the emperor, but he claims that men require civilian values and education to properly exercise power. As an example of the “excessive arrogance” of Domitian, he points out that the emperor had demanded that the senate address him as “lord and god” (11.2). Although the title was abandoned by his immediate successors, Victor complains that this title “was revived more forcefully” by emperors much later. He is openly critical of Diocletian’s assumption of autocratic dress and presentation. The emperor’s use of silk, gems, and purple demonstrated that he was “vain” and “tasteless.” Even worse, Diocletian allowed himself to be “worshipped and addressed as a god” (39.4–5). Victor attributes these innovations to the emperor’s humble background, for, in the historian’s experience, when the humble receive great power they become excessively proud. It is easy to see why Victor would have eagerly served Julian, the late antique emperor who most closely approximated his ideal of the educated and civil emperor who eschews the trappings of power.

Many other writers continued to reject the autocratic image of the emperor and to champion a more civilian style of rule. Although Eutropius was an imperial bureaucrat writing at the command of the emperor himself, he produced a work as civilian in ideology as is that of Victor. When Eutropius discusses the creation of the office of
dictator
during the early republic, he suggests that nothing is more similar to the power which Valens now holds (1.12.2). This appears to be an attempt by the historian to sanction and to limit imperial power by grounding it in past precedent. Eutropius states that Julius Caesar acted tyrannically and “contrary to the custom of Roman liberty” by not respecting the privileges of senators and the people (6.25). He complains that Diocletian first introduced the foreign custom of commanding that he be revered by prostration, “more associated with royal custom than with Roman liberty” (9.26). By way of contrast, a good emperor like Marcus Aurelius “acted as an equal to all at Rome” (8.12.1).

Ammianus’ consideration of the self-presentation of the emperor is more nuanced and perhaps more conflicted (Matthews 1989: 231–52). The historian may generally be considered a traditionalist, and thus in his praise of Julian, for example, he naturally compares him to emperors of the past such as Titus, Trajan, and Marcus Aurelius (16.1.4). In terms similar to those found in Victor and Eutropius, and perhaps drawn from them or their common source, Ammianus criticizes Diocletian’s introduction of prostration, “this
foreign and royal form custom” (15.5.18). Ammianus also shares with Victor and Eutropius the desire for an emperor who was properly educated and even philosophical.