problems that beset his fellows, and take into account
every advantage or disadvantage arising from age and
environment. Commonly to attain the true perspective
one must stand a century or at least a generation away.
But in the fourth century, in the midst of the quarrels
of Arian and Nicene, through all the turmoils of civil
strife and barbarian war, lived and wrote a man, whose
verdict on the men of his time is substantially our own.
How was it possible ?
Ammianus Marcellinus was born of Greek parents
at Antioch,* somewhere about the date of the Nicene
Council, 325 A.D. It is not possible, nor is it necessary,
to name the exact year. More we cannot say than that
* We are cariously reminded of his birthplace when he speaks of Julian's
invective against the Antiochenes (the MisQpogon)^ which he wrote " in a
1 age.... adding a good deal to the truth." Socrates, the fairest of Church
historians as became a lawyer of Constantinople, lets the book pass with the
lemark that **it left indelible stigmata on Antioch.'* Sozomen says it was
<* excellent and very witty.*' Zosimus, a heathen, says it was "most witty,
and blended such bitterness with its irony as to make the Antiochenes in*
famous everywhere.*' After twice reading the Alisopogon, I must say my
estimate is nearest that of Ammianus.
VOL. XX, XXX
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520 Ammianus Marcellinus,
he was of noble birth. Sooner or later he was as well
read a man as any of his day, but we cannot say what
his early education was. We first find him in the army
among the Protectores Domestici, for admission to
whose ranks personal beauty and noble birth were
necessary*. So we may safely pronounce Ammianus
ingenui volHcs puer ingenuique pudorts. He tells us
himself incidentally that at one critical moment he
found it not pure gain to be tugenuus.ji
We first find him in 353 at Nisibis, in Mesopotamia,
on the staff of Ursicinus.J to which position the Emperor
Constantius had appointed him. Ursicinus had been
in the East for ten years,§ we learn, without disaster,
in spite of the rawness and inefficiency of his troops.
Four years after we first see him, Ammianus includes
himself among the adulescenles\\ who were sent back to
the East with Ursicinus, while the older men were
promoted. Men vary so much in their ideas of what
is young and what is old, that it would be hard to guess
his exact age in 357.
He saw a good deal of travel and warfare first and
last. How long he was with Ursicinus during his first
period of Eastern service we cannot say. However, in
353 whisperers round the Court suggested to the greedy
ears of Constantius that it might be dangerous to leave
Ursicinus in the East after the recall of Gallus Caesar,
and he was summoned with all speed to Milan to
" discuss urgent business." All conveniences for rapid
travel were supplied,^ and " with long stages we made
all haste to Milan " to find they had come for nothing.
Perhaps they were not greatly surprised. It was Con-
stantius' method. Gallus was hurried home in the
same way to have his head cut off.
The next thing was the trial of Ursicinus for treason.
Constantius was jealous, and the creatures of the Court
♦ Piocopius, Hist. Arc»j 24. f xix. 8, ii. J xiv. 9, i.
§ xviii. 6, 2. II xvi. 10, 21. H xiv. ir, 5.
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Ammt'anus Marcellinus. 521
whispered. His friends at once deserted him for men
in the ascendant "just as when the magistrates in due
course succeed one another, the lictors pass to the new
from the old."* Ammianus could hardly express his
contempt more significantly. A plot was actually
made, and it seems the Emperor was cognizant of it —
though a defect in our text may be used to defend him,
but he was quite capable of the treachery— to kidnap
and kill Ursicinus untried, but delay saved him.
I^ 355 they left Milant under circumstances which
seem strange perhaps, but are characteristic of the age.
There was an officer in Gaul, Silvanus by name, loyal
enough to the Emperor, but he had enemies, and they
went to work in the usual way. They babbled to Con-
stantius of treason till the wretched Silvanus found his
only hope of life lay in treason — a desperate card to
play, but his only one — and he boldly proclaimed
himself Emperor. This was a thunderbolt indeed.
But Coastantius was not at a loss. He despatched
Ursicinus (with Ammianus in his train) to quell the
rebel, prepared to be glad to hear of the death of either
of his generals. But a handful of men went with Ur-
sicinus, for craft, or, if you like, treachery was to be the
tool employed. Ammianus felt, and they all felt
that they were in the position of gladiators con-
demned to fight beasts in the arena. They had to
make haste to keep the rebellion from spreading to
Italy, and so successful were they that Silvanus' reign
was one of only four weeks. They went, with a keen
sense of their risk, to Silvanus as friends ; they heard
his complaints of unv/orthy men being promoted over
his head and theirs; and after much discussion in
private, and many nervous changes of plan, they
managed to tamper with the troops. In a day or two
at daybreak a body of armed men burst out, slew
Silvanus' guards, and cut down himself as he fled to a
* XV. 2, 3. t XV. 5.
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church for safety. Thus fell at Cologne " an officer of
no mean merits, done to death by slanderous tongues,
so immeshed in his absence that he could only protect
himself by going to the extremest measures." Such is
Ammianus' comment on a nasty business which gave
him nothing but disgust. Constantius, however, was
so delighted as to feel himself " sky high and superior
to all human risks now."*
Ursicinus and Ammianus remained in Gaul for a
year perhaps.f In 356 they saw at Rheims the Caesar
Julian who had been sent to Gaul, as they had been
themselves, to crush Constantius' enemies, and if
possible meet his death in doing it. Towards the end
of the year came a welcome despatch summoning them
to Sirmium,j: whence the Emperor sent Ursicinus once
more to the East and Ammianus with him.
They were two years in the East, and meanwhile
plots thickened. " The Court, hammering as they say
the same anvil day and night at the bidding of the
eunuchs, held Ursicinus before the gaze of the suspicious
and timid Emperor as it were a Gorgon's head,"§
assuring him that his general " aspired higher." Chief
among the enemies was the rascal chamberlain, Euse-
bius, **with whom," says Ammianus, bitterly, "Con-
stantius had considerable influence ; " and the " piping
voice of the eunuch," and the "too open ears of the
prince" meant ruin for the brave soldier. But a
good deal was to come first.
War with the Persians was imminent. A Roman
subject of rank and some knowledge, harassed as
Silvanus had been, though by smaller enemies, found
life impossible within Roman frontiers, and fled to the
Persians, and there he and his knowledge were welcome*
A Persian invasion followed. Meanwhile the order had
reached Ursicinus at Samosata to yield his comipai^d
_ _
♦ atv. 5, 37. t ^^'i- 2, 8. X xvi. 10, 21. § xviii. 4, 2,
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Ammianus Marcellinus, 553
to one Sabinianus and come West.* The Syrians
heard with consternation, and all but laid violent hands
on him to keep him.f But Ursicinus and his staff had
to go, and they crossed the Taurus, and after a short
delay had travelled through Asia Minor, and were
already in Europe when fresh orders turned them back
whence they came. Sabinianus was recognized by the
Emperor to stand in need of a soldier at his side. Back
they went to Nisibis, and there they found their " little
fellow gaping " {pscitante homunculo).X Throughout the
campaign this seems to have been Sabinianus' attitude.
He visited Edessa and spent time among the " tombs,"
''as if, once he had made his peace with the dead,
nothing were to be feared."§ I suppose Ammianus
means shrines and martyries.|| Abgar, king of Edessa,
so a very old story goes, wrote to our Lord and had a
letter from Him, both letters being preserved for us by
Eusebius. In the Doctrine of Addai we have the whole
story of our Lord's sending Addai to Edessa, the healing
of Abgar and the conversion of the whole place with
such success and speed that they read the Diatessaron
in the churches nearly a century before it was made.
As Our Lord's letter was shewn to St Sylvia twenty
years later than this, it is just possible this relic accounts
for the open mouth of Sabinianus.
Leaving Sabinianus to his devotions, Ursicinus had
to take what steps he might without hindrance. And
now we are in the thick of the campaign. It was
reported at Nisibis that the enemy had crossed the
Tigris and that plundering bands were scouring the
country .If. " So," says Ammianus (and I translate his
account of an incident commonplace enough perhaps.
• xviii. 4, 7. t xviii. 6, 2. J xviii. 6, 8. \ xviii. 7, 7.
II It was believed by some that Julian, on his Anabasis, avoided the place
for the very fact of its early Christian associations. (Sozomcn, vi. i). It also
happened to be out of his way.
f xviii. 6, 10-16.
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5^4 Ammianns Marcellinus.
but illustrative of the times and the region) " to secure
the roads we set out at a trot, and at the second mile-
stone from the city we saw a child of gentle appearance,
wearing a necklace, and about eight years old we
supposed, sitting crying on the middle of a bank. He
was the son of a free man, he said, and his mother, as
she fled in hot haste for fear of the enemy who was hard
upon them, had found herself burdened with him in her
flurry and left him there alone. The general was
moved to pity, and at his bidding I took him up in front
of me on my horse and returned to the city, and mean-
while swarms of plunderers were surrounding the walls
far and wide. Alarmed at the idea of an ambush, I set
the boy within a half closed postern, and rode hard to
rejoin our troop in some terror; and I was all but
caught; for a hostile squad of horse in pursuit of a
certain Abdigidus, a tribune, and his groom, caught the
slave while the master escaped, and as I galloped by
they had just heard in reply to their question, " Who
was the officer who had ridden out?" that Ursicinus
had a little before reached the city, and was now making
for Mount Izala. They slew their informant, gathered
together in some numbers, and, without taking rein,
made after us.
'* Thanks to the speed of my animal, I outrode them
and at Amudis, a weak fort, I found my comrades care-
lessly lying about with their horses grazing. I flung
out my arm and waving the ends of my cloak on high
(the usual signal) I let them know the enemy was at
hand. Joining them I rode off with them, my horse
already in distress. What terrified us was the full
moon and the dead level of the country which offered
no hiding place in case of pressing need, as no trees or
bushes or anything but short grass was to be seen.
We therefore devised this plan. A lighted torch was
set on a single horse and tied so as not to fall. The
animal without a rider was sent off toward the left,
while we made for the foot of the mountains on the
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Amvitanus Marcellinus. 525
right, so that the Persians, in the belief that it was the
torch to light the general as he quietly rode along,
weight go in that direction. But for this device we
should have been surrounded and captured and come
into the enemy's hands.
" Escaped from this peril we came to a wooded spot
planted with vines and apple trees, Meiacarire by name,
so called from its cold springs. Its inhabitants had
fled and we found but one man hid away in a corner —
a soldier. He was brought to the general and in his
terror gave confused answers which made us suspect
him. In fear of our threats, he sets forth the real state
of affairs, and tells us he was born at Paris in Gaul and
had served in the cavalry, but to escape punishment for
some offence he had deserted to the Persians. On his
character being established he had married and had a
family, and had often been sent as a spy among us and
brought back true information. He had now been sent
by Tamsapor and Nohodar, the nobles at the head of
the marauding forces, and was on his way back to tell
what he had learnt. On hearing this and what he knew
of what was going on elsewhere, we slew him."
I pass over a reconnoitring expedition made by
Ammianus, and the disgraceful loss of an important
bridge through the carelessness of a force of cavalry
fresh from Illyricum, and the rout which followed, in
which Ursicinus' party got separated, Ammianus escaping
to Amid.* The path up to the gate was narrow and he
spent a curious night jammed in a crowd of living and
dead, with a soldier in front of him held erect by the
press though his head was halved to the neck. Then
followed the siege of Amid, the story of which told in
his nineteenth book may rank for vividness and interest
with the sieges of Quebec or Louisbourg. Remember
that the story is told by a soldier, an eye witness and
the man of all men then living most fitted to tell such
a tale.
♦ xviii. 8, 11-14
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526 Ammtanus Alarcelh'nus.
The Persian army moved on to Amid,* ** and when
next dawn gleamed, all that could be seen glittered
with starry arms, and iron cavalry filled plains and
hills." The phrase is curious as many of his phrases are.
The sunlight caught a thousand bright surfaces and
the reflexions suggested the starry heavens. The iron
cavalry are the cataphracts or men in armour mounted
on horses in armour. We hear a good deal of them in
Ammianus and Julian, who compares them to equestrian
statues. " Riding his horse, and towering over all, the
King himself (magnificently if tersely described as ipse
without another word) rode down his lines, wearing as
a diadem a golden ram's head set with gems, exalted
with every kind of dignity and the attendance of divers
races." He was intent on a siege, and, though the
renegade advised against it, the " divinity of heaven "
{foeleste numen) ruled that all his force should be con-
centrated on this corner of the Roman world and the
rest should escape.
Sapor the king in a lordly way advanced to the
walls, called for a surrender, and nearly lost his life for
his pains, and retired raging as if sacrilege had been
committed. Next day a subject king, Grumbates, came
near losing his life on the same errand, his son falling
at his side. Over the prince's body there was a fight,
which recalled the death of Patroclus. The Persians at
last bore him oflF and for seven days he lay in state
while they held his funeral, feasting and dancing and
singing sad dirges in lamentation for the royal youth,
much as women wail for Adonis. At last they burnt
the corpse and gathered his bones to send home to his
own people, and after a rest of two days war began
♦ Amid (now Diarbekr) on the Tigris was one of the most important
places strategically and commercially in the country, though less so than
Nisibis, which was the key of the situation. This should be borne in miud
when we come to Jovian's surrender. That Diarbekr is still the seal of the
seat of the patriarch of the Jacobites shew its ancient importance (Stanley,
Eoitern Church i.)
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Ammtanus Marcellinus, 527
again with a great display of Sapor's troops, cataphracts
elephants and all.* Next day Grumbates, in the character
of di /etialisy hurled a blood-stained spear at the city,
and fighting began. Catapults, "scorpions" (for hurling
great stones) and engines of all Jcindsf came into play,
and many were the deaths on both sides. The night
fell and both armies kept watch under arms, while the
hills rang as "our men extolled the prowess of Con-
stantius Caesar as lord of the world and the universe,
and the Persians hailed Sapor as saansaan (king of
kings) SLudptrosen (conqueror in war"). J
Before dawn fighting began again. "So many
evils stood around us, that it was not to win deliverance
but with a passionate desire to die bravely we burned."
At last night put an end to the slaughter, but brought
little help for the wounded. There were seven legions
in the little city and a great crowd of country people
beside the citizens, and there was no room or leisure
for the burial of the dead.
Meanwhile Ursicinus was chafing to go to the
rescue, but Sabinianus " sticking to the tombs " would
neither let him go nor go himself. It was believed
Constantius was to blame for this in his anxiety " that
even though it ruined the provinces, this man of war
should not be reported as the author of any memorable
deed nor the partner in one either."
Now came pestilence from the bodies of the slain,
and for ten days it raged till rain fell and stopped it.
All the time the siege was pushed on, and the defenders'
* This proceeding, strange as it may seem, occurs again at Daras, 530 A.D.
On the second day fighting began and Belisarius won a great victory.
t Elsewhere (xxiii. 4) Ammianus gives a description of these various
machines.
J Mr E. G. Browne informs me that this is a locus classicus with
Orientalists, which some have tried very needlessly to emend. The passage
is historical proof that the official language of the Sasanian kings was not
pronounced as it is written, but for Aramaic words in the script their Persian
equivalents were read. It may be remarked tliat Ammianus ss generally sound
in his Syriac too.
VOL. XX. y Y y
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528 Ammiantis Marcellinus.
difficulties were increased by the presence of two Celtic
legions fresh from Gaul and itching to be " up and at
them." It took a good deal to hold them inside the
walls at all. A deserter betrayed a secret passage
leading to a tower, and while engaged with foes with-
out the defenders suddenly found some seventy archers
shooting at them from a post of vantage within the
walls, and with difficulty dislodged them. A half day's
rest, and then " with the dawn we see a countless throng
taken on the capture of the fort Ziata being led away to
the enemy's land, thousands of men going into captivity,
many among them frail with age, and aged women ; and
if weary with their long march they failed, all love of
life now gone, they were left hamstrung." The sight
was too much for the Celtic legions who raged like
beasts of prey in their cages, and drew their swords on
the gates which had been barred to keep them in.
They were afraid "lest the city should fall and they
should be blotted out without a single brilliant exploit,
or if it escaped it should be said that the Gauls did
nothing worth while to shew their spirit. We were
quite at a loss how to face them in their rage but at
last decided (and got a reluctant consent to it from
them)" that they should make a sortie on a dark night.
The dark night came and with a prayer for heavenly
protection the Gauls sallied out to the Persian camp,
and but for some accident of a step heard or a dying
man's groan caught they would have killed Sapor ; but
Sapor had twenty years of mischief before him yet.
Towers and elephants in turn were brought against
the city, but the " scorpions " were too much for both ;
and the siege dragged on so that Sapor created a pre-
cedent and rushed into the fray in person. At last
banks were raised, and the counter work put up by
the besieged came crashing down as if there had been
an earthquake ; and the end had come. After a siege
of seventy-three days the Persians had their way open,
and now it was every man for himself, and all day long
the streets were shambles.
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Ammianus Marcellinus. 529
"So at eventide, lurking with two others in an
out-of-the-way part of the city under the cover of
night's darkness, I escaped by a postern ; and, thanks
to an acquaintance with the country, now all dark, and
the speed of my companions, I at last reached the tenth
mile-stone. Here we halted and rested a little ; and
just as we were starting again, and I was giving out
under the fatigue of walking, yjTr as a noble I was unused
to it^ I saw a dreadful sight, but to me in my weary
state it was to be a relief exceedingly timely." It was
a runaway horse trailing its groom behind it, and as
the dead body checked its speed, it was quickly caught,
and Ammianus mounted. After a journey through the
desert they reached the Euphrates to see Roman cavalry
in flight with Persians in hot pursuit. *'A11 hope of
escape lay in speed, and through thickets and woods
we made for the higher hills, and so we came to
Melitina, a town of lesser Armenia, and there we found
the general and his staff setting out for Antioch."
After these adventures Ammianus probably went
West again with Ursicinus, who, as magister pediium^
was kept near Constantius till slander prevailed and
drove him into private life, and we hear no more of
him, though his faithful follower tells us that a son of
his was slain at Adrianople in 378.
Ammianus had by no means seen his last of war in
the East. In some capacity he went with his hero, the
Emperor Julian, on the fatal expedition against Sapor
in 363. From point to point we can follow their
Anabasis in the twenty-third and twenty-fourth books,
and ever and again we find the verb in the first person,
vidimus^ venimus. It is, however, needless to trace
their march, as Ammianus records practically nothing
done by himself, though we may well believe he was
not the least interested of the men who gazed on the
wall paintings of battle and the chase at Coche.*
• xxiv. 6, 3, Coche was practically a suburb of Ctesiphon, the Persian
capital, lying across the Tigris.
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Wherever he went we seem to see him with eyes open,
quietly taking note of men and things.
When Julian was brought wounded to his tent, is it
hazarding too much to suppose that Ammianus was at
his side, and heard the manly farewell he made to his
officers ? Ammianus, unlike other Latin historians we
have read, does not make speeches for his characters to
deliver. With very few exceptions, if any, the speeches
he reports are formal, set harangues delivered by
emperors at coronations; and though he may very
properly have condensed Julian's words, he is not the
man to have invented them.* At all events he says
nothing about Vicisti Galilaee^ which is almost enough
of itself to stamp that story a legend.f
Whether he had a share in the deliberations which
led to Jovian's election as emperor he does not say.f
If he had he was certainly not proud of it, for he tacitly
apologizes for the choice made " when things were at
the last gasp."§ He shared the privations and the
shame of the retreat, and for once burning indignation
betrays itself in the calm historian. Jovian accepted
Sapor's terms and surrendered five provinces, including
the all-important city of Nisibis, " when ten times over
the thing to do was to fight."|| The surrender was
made "without any hesitation,'* and we may picture
the feelings of the old soldier, whose own two leaders
had been men indeed, when he penned the words sine
cunctatione tradidiL% It was indeed a pudenda pax,*^
He witnessed the rage and grief of the betrayed Nisibis,
Jovian to save his spul respecting his oath so far as to
* Gibbon believes the speech to be authentic, but wickedly suggests that
Julian must have previously prepared it in case of an emergency.
t Theodoret (c. 430) tells the story. Socrates and Sozomen, historians
of a higher type and about the same date, do not hint at it,
X It has been conjectured that he was himself the honoratior aliqun miUf
who urged postponement. Gibbon (c. 24) and Hodgkin (i. 119).
{ XXV. 5, 7. II XXV. 7, 10. Cum pugnari decies e:^pediret,
f XXV. 7, II. ♦* xxvii, 12, I.
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Ammt'anus Marcellinus. 531
forbid the inhabitants to stand up for themselves
independently of Roman support,* and looking on,
Roman emperor as he was, while a Persian noble
" hung out from the citadel the standard of his people."
He tells us of his return to Antioch, and then we are
left to conjecture where he went and what he did. He
was writing history, and personal details would have been
biography ; and he more than once protests that history
cannot mention everybody's name, nor record what
everybody did. Minutiae ignobiles axe outside its sphere.
Where he has mentioned himself it has always been
because he was an eye witness. At some time or other
he visited Egypt, to which visit he twice alludes, once