The Historians of Late Antiquity (6 page)

Ammianus is the only ancient historian to offer extensive digressions on scientific matters (den Hengst 1992). These digressions include information on earthquakes, tidal waves, plagues, eclipses, the rainbow, meteors, comets, and the bissextile day. Den Hengst is surely correct in including in the scientific category the “religious” digressions, such as those on divination and on the
genius
, as these are also explanations of the natural world as Ammianus understood it. Scientific digressions, like geographic digressions, often serve a narrative purpose. Ammianus describes ominous natural phenomena, such as eclipses and comets, which occur at significant points in the action, and his digressions force the reader to stop and to reflect upon these turning points. An egregious example is the digression on eclipses, inspired by an eclipse which Ammianus suggests foreshadowed the elevation of Julian to the rank of Augustus. The historian uses the digression to put the celestial mark of approval upon Julian’s elevation, an approval so desperately desired that, it appears, Ammianus simply invented an eclipse which did not really take place (20.3; Barnes 1998: 102–6).

Digressions in Ammianus may also have a moralizing purpose. There are many ethnographic digressions, including passages on the Gauls (15.12.1–4), Persians (23.6.75–84; Teitler 1999), Saracens (14.4.1–7), Huns, and Alans (31.2.1–25; King 1987), to which one might add the scattered comments on eunuchs (especially 14.6.17, 16.7.8–10, 18.4.5; Tougher 1999), who are treated as a race apart. Ammianus’ treatment of non-Romans in his digressions is very much in keeping with traditions of ancient historiography. The bizarre and primitive habits of the barbarian (for example, the Huns do not cook meat, but merely heat it by a day’s ride under a saddle) are contrasted with the civilized behavior of the Romans. On the
other hand, the barbarian often possesses some traits, such as loyalty and fighting ability, which the effete Roman has lost. This use of ethnographic digressions as an opportunity for the historian to comment upon contemporary
mores
is not uncommon in ancient historiography.

Ammianus’ satirical and moralizing “Roman digressions” are, by contrast, a striking innovation (14.6 and 28.4; Rees 1999; Salemme 1987; Kohns 1975; Pack 1953). In the course of a discussion of Orfitus’ prefecture of Rome, Ammianus describes how the city was wracked by riots inspired by wine shortages (14.6.1). The digression which follows is introduced as an explanation for why Ammianus’ descriptions of events at Rome concern nothing but “riots, taverns, and worthless things” (14.6.2). The historian attributes Rome’s success to a partnership between Virtue and Fortune, a union which enabled the Romans to expand from a single city to a worldwide empire. Rome, the personified city, has now retired, passing on its power and responsibility to the emperors, who serve as its heirs. And although the ancient assemblies no longer rule the city, Rome is revered and admired throughout the world (14.6.3–6; Matthews 1986).

This idyllic picture of Rome is marred, however, by the fickleness and licentiousness of a few inhabitants who do not respect the magnificence of their native city. Ammianus’ criticism of these Romans centers upon traditional satiric concerns: they prance in overly luxurious clothes (14.6.9), they boast of their wealth (14.6.10), and they offer hospitality to gamblers and gossips but not to the learned (14.6.14), for they prefer music and dance to serious scholarship (14.6.18). He has words of criticism for the Roman plebeians as well, who are obsessed with gambling, and are normally to be found either gaping at the chariot races or snorting unpleasantly over a dice game (14.6.25–6). Ammianus’ account of the city prefecture of Ampelius in 371–2 (28.4.3–5) provides further opportunity for the historian to digress in a satirical vein. Again the nobles are reproached for directing their hospitality toward charioteers and parasites (28.4.10–12) and for hating learning like poison (28.4.14). They are also legacy-hunters (28.4.22), arrogant (28.4.23), and superstitious (28.4.24). Commoners are again scorned for their obsession with races and shows (28.4.29–32) and for stuffing themselves with loathsome food (28.4.34).

Various attempts have been made to interpret these unprecedented derisive digressions. Ammianus’ criticisms have often been
linked to particular bad experiences he himself may have undergone at Rome. Both digressions do place great emphasis on the abysmal hospitality offered by the city elite (14.6.12–15, 28.4.10–13, 17). The hosts prefer gamblers, musicians, and loudmouths to learned men because of their ignorance. Libraries have been shut up like tombs (14.6.18), and the only reading that these men do is of the satirist Juvenal and the scandalous biographer Marius Maximus (28.4.14). Ammianus is also critical of the attitude of the Romans toward foreigners. While in the old days, noble Romans kindly welcomed foreign travelers of high birth, now they only have time for the childless and unmarried (14.6.22), and the common people are now wont to chant in the theater that visitors ought to be driven from the city (28.4.32). These complaints come together in Ammianus’ account of the expulsion of foreigners from the cities during a time of food shortages (14.6.19–20). Ammianus says that “not so long ago” foreigners who were students of the liberal arts were driven from the city, while scandalously unmarried dancing girls and their attendants remained behind. This expulsion is usually dated to 383 (Symm.
ep
. 2.7). Since Ammianus may well have been affected by this expulsion, and since we would certainly expect him to have experienced Roman hospitality and to include himself among the learned foreign visitors to the city, it may be that we see in these digressions a reflection of Ammianus’ personal pique.

The digressions may also be examined for what they tell us about the composition and expectations of Ammianus’ audience. His exaggerated lampooning of the senatorial aristocracy suggests that senators did not dominate his audience. Instead, we can best understand the satirical digressions as pitched toward an audience of bureaucrats and soldiers like Ammianus himself, perhaps some of those who were associated with the visit of Theodosius to Rome in 387 and who would transmit news of the history to Libanius on the return to the east (Matthews 1989: 8–9). They would have shared his difficulties with the hospitality of local aristocrats, and may have shared the Greek contempt for their hosts’ lack of learning. It is noteworthy that Ammianus in several places parodies the Romans as soldiers
manqués
. He jokes that the Romans who must travel a bit to reach their summer homes believe that they have thereby rivaled the conquests of Alexander the Great (28.4.18), and he says that they arrange their household slaves and staffs – eunuchs, cooks, weavers – as if they are an army on the march (14.6.17, 28.4.8). In another passage, it appears (the text is uncertain) that Ammianus
presents a retired soldier who cleverly deceives his gullible Roman audience (28.4.20). These sorts of criticisms might be judged particularly amusing by an audience familiar with soldiering.

Despite Ammianus’ claim to be speaking about only “a few” of the Romans, and his obvious use of satiric exaggeration, readers of the Roman digressions have sometimes taken at full value Ammianus’ portrait of Roman life. The passages fit particularly well into interpretations of the fall of Rome which blame the collapse on the decadence of a once-great people. But this passage, like the rest of the
Res Gestae
, must be approached with a more sophisticated eye. Despite Ammianus’ portrait, fourth-century Rome was still a vibrant and intellectually exciting city, as numerous other sources reveal. While Ammianus has a reputation for balance and accuracy, these passages reveal his willingness to use exaggeration and outright slander to make a point. Traditional respect for Ammianus’ reliability has been eroded in certain areas by modern studies which focus on the ways in which his work is marred by tendentiousness and partisanship.

Several features of the
Res Gestae
encourage the reader to trust in Ammianus’ good faith and honesty. His prefaces declare his careful historical method and his devotion to the truth, although such declarations are conventional and employed by many of the historians of the period. After all, he also declares that he “will never depart intentionally from the truth” as he begins his outrageous Roman digression (14.6.2). Ammianus’ comments on the emperor Julian more effectively support his claim of an even-handed approach. The emperor is, on the one hand, clearly the hero of the work, and when Ammianus begins to describe Julian’s campaigns in Gaul he warns that, although he will always tell the truth, the account will seem almost like a panegyric (16.1.3). Julian is favorably compared with the great emperors of the past, such as Titus, Vespasian, Trajan, and Marcus Aurelius (16.1.4). Digressions describe Julian’s many outstanding qualities (e.g. 16.5) and at his death his virtues are laid out as in a formal encomium (25.4.1–15). Nevertheless, despite the open partisanship of parts of his narrative, Ammianus provides the reader with several critical comments on the emperor’s career and character. Julian was “superstitious rather than truly religious” (25.4.17), given to excessive sacrificing and foolish dependence on untrustworthy diviners. He was also too populist and too often undignified in his conduct as emperor (25.4.18), as he demonstrated when he leapt out of his seat in the senate of Constantinople to embrace the philosopher Maximinus
(22.7.3), or when he dismissed every one of the attendants from the palace (22.4.1–2). Ammianus also criticizes several of Julian’s laws, such as the school law which forbade Christians to teach the pagan classics (25.4.20), and the curial laws which attempted to press more people into service in their local government (22.9.12, 25.4.21).

Ammianus shows this same willingness to provide a mix of favorable and unfavorable material in his obituary treatments of other emperors. At the death of each, he presents their virtues and vices in turn. Although his narrative accounts of the reigns of Constantius II, Valentinian, and Valens are broadly critical, in their obituaries Ammianus includes some positive judgements as well. Constantius was dignified, careful as an administrator, and temperate and abstinent in his personal life (21.16.1–7). Valentinian successfully fortified and defended the Rhine, and had military success on other western frontiers (30.7.5–11). Valens was a just and prudent administrator who restored public buildings and successfully resisted unfair attempts on the public purse (31.14.1–5). These obituary evaluations are, however, typically more negative than positive, and even the positive comments are often laced with sarcasm, as in this comment on Constantius’ artistic pretensions: “He was a diligent striver after culture, but he was dissuaded from rhetoric because of his dull mind, and when he turned to the more difficult art of writing poetry, nothing worthwhile resulted” (21.16.4). That Constantius never ate fruit during his life is also curiously brought forth as an example of his merits (21.16.7). Yet Ammianus’ willingness to provide any exculpatory information at all about his “bad” emperors can be seen as an attempt at fairness.

Ammianus’ treatment of Christianity also has been cited as evidence of his fairness (Hunt 1985, 1993). Although Ammianus was a pagan, the
Res Gestae
is free from the virulent contempt for Christianity often found in the work of other fourth-century writers. Indeed, Ammianus occasionally makes references to Christianity which can be interpreted positively, such as his description of Christianity as a “simple and complete religion” (21.16.18), his praise of provincial bishops (27.3.15), and his reference to the “glorious death” of Christian martyrs (22.11.10). This moderate tone is, however, often undermined by more subtle attacks on Christianity (Barnes 1998; Elliott 1983).

Other motives have also undermined the impartiality of Ammianus’ history. Ammianus was, unsurprisingly, a partisan
supporter of his patron Ursicinus, and he presents him in a favorable light (Matthews 1989: 34–47; Thompson 1947a: 42–55; Blockley 1969, 1980a). He tries to excuse Ursicinus’ participation in the trials under Gallus in 354 by claiming that Ursicinus sent secret letters to Constantius describing the corruption and begging for aid (14.9.1). These letters and the excesses of these trials may have provided the impetus for Constantius’ recall and execution of his nephew later in the year (14.11). From this point on Ammianus depicts the relationship between Constantius and Ursicinus as fueled by the emperor’s paranoia and his lamentable susceptibility to court gossip. We might be more willing to see Constantius’ behavior as evidence of the prudence required of a late Roman emperor in dealing with a popular subordinate. Ammianus suggests that the dispatch of Ursicinus to put down Silvanus was a fiendish trick of the emperor to ensure that he would rid himself of at least one of his troublesome generals (15.5.19). We receive from Ammianus a thrilling narrative of this event, which emphasizes the fear and isolation felt by Ursicinus, Ammianus, and their small party, the cynicism and corruption at the court of Constantius, and the regrettable end of the general forced into rebellion. Ammianus begins by convincing us of the innocence of Silvanus, in order that he might blacken the character of Constantius, and ends by convincing us of Silvanus’ guilt, in order that he might excuse the murder orchestrated by Ursicinus and Ammianus himself (Hunt 1999). Ammianus’ manipulations and inconsistencies make it clear that he has shaded the truth. It is, for example, impossible that Silvanus could have been in full revolt when Ursicinus’ party headed to Gaul, and yet Ursicinus could plausibly have pretended to be unaware of the usurpation upon his arrival (Drinkwater 1994). After the murder of Silvanus, Ursicinus must have remained in Gaul as Silvanus’ replacement for the next two years (Frézouls 1962), but Ammianus makes little mention of it. Perhaps Ursicinus played a discreditable role in the trials of the associates of Silvanus that followed his fall (15.6; Matthews 1989: 81–3). In addition, the historian wishes to stress the disorder in Gaul when Julian became Caesar, in order to emphasize the magnitude of Julian’s accomplishments, without blaming this disorder on Ursicinus.