17 Facts About Ammianus Marcellinus

Ammianus Marcellinus's 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.

Ammianus Marcellinus served as an officer in the army of the emperors Constantius II and Julian.

Ammianus Marcellinus professes to have been "a former soldier and a Greek", and his enrollment among the elite protectores domestici shows that he was of middle class or higher birth.

Consensus is that Ammianus Marcellinus probably came from a curial family, but it is possible that he was the son of a comes Orientis of the same family name.

Ammianus Marcellinus 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.

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Ammianus Marcellinus travelled with Ursicinus to Italy when Ursicinus was called on by Constantius to begin an expedition against Silvanus.

Ammianus Marcellinus then stayed in Gaul to help install Julian as Caesar of Gaul, Spain and Britain.

Ammianus Marcellinus probably met Julian for the first time while serving on Ursicinus' staff in Gaul.

Ammianus Marcellinus returned with his commander to the East and again served Ursicinus as a staff officer.

Ammianus Marcellinus successfully located the Persian main body and reported his findings to Ursicinus.

When Ursicinus was dismissed from his military post by Constantius, Ammianus Marcellinus too seems to have retired from the military; however, reevaluation of his participation in Julian's Persian campaign has led modern scholarship to suggest that he continued his service but did not for some reason include the period in his history.

Ammianus Marcellinus accompanied Julian, for whom he expresses enthusiastic admiration, in his campaigns against the Alamanni and the Sassanids.

Ammianus Marcellinus was residing in Antioch in 372 when a certain Theodorus was thought to have been identified the successor to the emperor Valens by divination.

Ammianus Marcellinus eventually settled in Rome and began the Res Gestae.

Ammianus Marcellinus writes of Christianity as being a "plain and simple" religion that demands only what is just and mild, and when he condemns the actions of Christians, he does not do so on the basis of their Christianity as such.

Ammianus Marcellinus's handling from his earliest printers was little better.

Ammianus Marcellinus's report describes accurately the characteristic sequence of earthquake, retreat of the sea, and sudden incoming giant wave.