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35-653: Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus ( c. 390) described the Limigantes as Sarmatae servi ("Sarmatian slaves/serfs"), as opposed to the Arcaragantes , Sarmatae liberi ("free Sarmatians"). It is unclear whether the Limigantes were simply an under-class of ethnic Sarmatians or a non-Sarmatian subject people. In 332, the Sarmatians in Banat asked Constantine the Great for aid against

70-545: A pusillanimous and debauched old man, who spent the entire ensuing campaign in his luxurious mansion in Edessa . Ursicinus arrived just in time for the Siege of Amida , near which he was nearly captured by the cavalry of the Persian vanguard, and his guard dispersed. Ursicinus was able to maintain contact with the defenders of the city, and he did his utmost to relieve them but was foiled by

105-466: A wounded comrade. The Persians besieged and eventually sacked Amida, and 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 campaign has led modern scholarship to suggest that he continued his service but did not for some reason include

140-497: 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. His lifetime was marked by lengthy outbreaks of sectarian and dogmatic strife within the new state-backed faith, often with violent consequences (especially the Arian controversy ) and these conflicts sometimes appeared unworthy to him, though it was territory where he could not risk going very far in criticism, due to

175-604: 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, and warned 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, Ammianus left

210-549: The Praetorian Guard , where he gained firsthand experience in various military campaigns. He 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

245-692: The Thervingi . These Sarmatians had armed their "slaves" in order to cope with the situation; according to contemporary sources there were two categories of Sarmatians: the "masters" – the Agaragantes , and the "slaves" – Limigantes. In 334, there was an internal conflict between the Agaragantes and the Limigantes. The Limagantes had, after the conflict with the Goths, turned and expelled the Arcaragantes who then settled in

280-635: The 380s, Ammianus wrote a Latin history of the Roman empire from the accession of Nerva (96) to the death of Valens at the Battle of Adrianople (378), in effect writing a continuation of the history of Tacitus . At 22.16.12 he praises the Serapeum of Alexandria in Egypt as the glory of the empire, so his work was presumably completed before the destruction of that building in 391. The Res gestae ( Rerum gestarum libri XXXI )

315-540: The East twice under Ursicinus. He travelled with Ursicinus to Italy in an expedition against Silvanus , an officer who had proclaimed himself emperor in Gaul . Ursicinus ended the threat by having Silvanus assassinated, then stayed in the region 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

350-569: The Eastern part of the Roman Empire. From AD 349 to 359 he served as Magister Equitum in the East. In 351 or 352 he was entrusted with the suppression of the Jewish revolt against Constantius Gallus led by Patricius and Isaac of Diocesarea . Tiberias and Diospolis , two of the cities conquered by the rebels, were almost completely destroyed, while Diocaesarea was razed to the ground. Ursicinus also

385-434: The Limigantes broke the terms of their treaty with Constantius and raided outside the territory assigned to them the previous year. George Vernadsky believed that the Agaragantes were Sarmatians and the Limigantes were Slavs. Ammianus Marcellinus Ammianus Marcellinus , occasionally anglicised as Ammian ( Greek : Αμμιανός Μαρκελλίνος; born c.  330 , died c.  391  – 400),

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420-622: The area of the Victohali , to the south of the Danube , and became their vassals. In AD 357, the Roman emperor Constantius II (ruled 337-361) faced a large force of Limigantes, who had successfully rebelled against their Iazyges overlords and then launched an invasion of Roman territory on the South bank of the Danube. The barbarians entered the empire near the confluence of the rivers Danube and Tisza , invading

455-456: The characteristic sequence of earthquake, retreat of the sea, and sudden incoming giant wave. Ursicinus (magister equitum) Ursicinus was a Roman senior military officer, holding the rank of Magister Equitum per Orientem (Master of Horse of the East) and even Magister Peditum Praesentalis in the later Roman Empire c. 349–359. He was a citizen of Antioch and was well connected in

490-503: The cowardice of Sabinianus, who forbade him in the name of the emperor from putting his soldiers at any risk. In the picturesque language of Ammianus Marcellinus : "So that he seemed like a lion, terrible for his size and ferocity, but with claws cut and teeth drawn, so that he could not save from danger his cubs entangled in the nets of the hunters." Ursicinus was dismissed after the destruction of Amida (modern Diyarbakır , Turkey ) in AD 359 by

525-597: 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

560-474: The experience of the soldiers but at the cost of ignoring the bigger picture. As a result, it is difficult for the reader to understand why the battles he describes had the outcome they did. Ammianus' work contains a detailed description of the earthquake and tsunami of 365 in Alexandria , which devastated the metropolis and the shores of the eastern Mediterranean on 21 July 365. His report describes accurately

595-521: The growing and volatile political connections between the church and imperial power. Ammianus was not blind to the faults of Christians or of pagans and was especially critical of them; he commented that "no wild beasts are so hostile to men as Christian sects in general are to one another" and he condemns the emperor Julian for excessive attachment to (pagan) sacrifice, and for his edict effectively barring Christians from teaching posts. While living in Rome in

630-535: The headquarters at Amida in the retinue of Ursinicus, who was 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 unprepared. After a protracted cavalry battle, the Romans were scattered; Ursicinus evaded capture and fled to Melitene, while Ammianus made a difficult journey back to Amida with

665-415: The high chamberlain, according to Ammianus, brought about his recall to the court in the same year, where he was to be given the position of master of infantry, taken from Barbatio who was lately executed. Once near the court it would be easy to have him implicated for treason The threat of war from Persia led to his being immediately sent back to the frontier, but he was placed under the orders of Sabinianus,

700-517: The history of his own times without indulging the prejudices and passions which usually affect the mind of a contemporary." But he also condemned Ammianus for lack of literary flair: "The coarse and undistinguishing pencil of Ammianus has delineated his bloody figures with tedious and disgusting accuracy." Austrian historian Ernst Stein praised Ammianus as "the greatest literary genius that the world produced between Tacitus and Dante ". According to Kimberly Kagan , his accounts of battles emphasize

735-528: The loss of the first thirteen books, the remaining eighteen are in many places corrupt and lacunose . The sole surviving manuscript from which almost every other is derived is a ninth-century Carolingian text, Vatican lat. 1873 ( V ), produced in Fulda from an insular exemplar. The only independent textual source for Ammianus lies in Fragmenta Marbugensia ( M ), another ninth-century Frankish codex which

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770-539: The ongoing disorders in the administration of the east, decided to dethrone Gallus at once by whatever means possible. Meanwhile, the high chamberlain Eusebius and other enemies of Ursicinus at court had poisoned Constantius' mind against the magister equitum, so that the emperor resolved to recall him to the court on the pretext of promotion, to prevent him from conspiring from afar. When, in 355, Claudius Silvanus revolted against Emperor Constantius II in Gaul , Ursicinus

805-744: 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

840-510: The poor text of the 1474 edition; the 1474 edition was pirated for the first Froben edition (Basle, 1518). It was not until 1533 that the last five books of Ammianus' history were put into print by Silvanus Otmar and edited by Mariangelus Accursius . The first modern edition was produced by C.U. Clark (Berlin, 1910–1913). The first English translations were by Philemon Holland in 1609, and later by C.D. Yonge in 1862. Edward Gibbon judged Ammianus "an accurate and faithful guide, who composed

875-407: The province of Moesia Superior (roughly mod. Serbia ). In a hard-fought battle, the Romans routed the Limigantes, slaughtering a large number. After this, the remaining Limigantes surrendered and were assigned lands to settle in beyond the imperial border, but which were apparently under Roman control (possibly seized from the "free Sarmatians" separately defeated earlier in the same year). In 358,

910-463: 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 scholarship generally describes Ammianus as a pagan who was tolerant of Christianity. Marcellinus writes of Christianity as being a "plain and simple" religion that demands only what

945-514: Was a Roman soldier and historian who wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from antiquity (preceding Procopius ). Written in Latin and known as the Res gestae , his work chronicled 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. Only the sections covering the period 353 to 378 survive. Ammianus

980-526: Was born in the East Mediterranean, possibly in Syria or Phoenicia , around 330, into a noble family of Greek origin. Since he calls himself Graecus ( lit. Greek), he was most likely born in a Greek-speaking area of the empire. His native language was Greek but he also knew Latin. The surviving books of his history cover the years 353 to 378. Ammianus began his career as a military officer in

1015-414: Was copied from M. As L. D. Reynolds summarizes, "M is thus a fragment of the archetype; symptoms of an insular pre-archetype are evident." His handling from his earliest printers was little better. The editio princeps was printed in 1474 in Rome by Georg Sachsel and Bartholomaeus Golsch, which broke off at the end of Book 26. The next edition (Bologna, 1517) suffered from its editor's conjectures upon

1050-399: Was in fact not impartial, although he expresses an intention to be so, and had strong moral and religious prejudices. Although criticised as lacking literary merit by his early biographers, he was in fact quite skilled in rhetoric, which significantly has brought the veracity of some of the Res gestae into question. His work has suffered substantially from manuscript transmission. Aside from

1085-459: 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

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1120-643: Was ordered to kill several thousand rebels, even young ones. In 353, historian Ammianus Marcellinus was attached to the command of Ursicinus at his headquarters in Nisibis , where he remained until recalled in 354 by Gallus, as the magister equitum, to preside at an investigation for treason in Antioch . According to Ammianus, the charges he was called upon to investigate were preposterous, being fabricated by Gallus' paranoia and bloodthirsty-ness, but Ursicinus nonetheless had to put many to death. Constantius, having heard of

1155-406: Was originally composed of thirty-one books, but the first thirteen have been lost. The surviving eighteen books, covering the period from 353 to 378, constitute the foundation of modern understanding of the history of the fourth century Roman Empire. They are lauded as a clear, comprehensive, and generally impartial account of events by a contemporary; like many ancient historians, however, Ammianus

1190-537: Was sent to him with a letter of recall by Constantius, which he was ordered to deliver in as favorable a manner as possible and dissuade Claudius from revolt. However, since Silvanus' revolt had already reached uncontrollable proportions, Ursicinus had to assassinate Silvanus, thereupon assuming his command. Ursicinus was ordered to remain in Gaul to supervise Julian as he took command as Caesar of Gaul, Spain and Britain. In 357 or 358 Constantius sent him back east to resume his command. The court intrigues of Eusebius

1225-466: Was taken apart to provide covers for account-books during the fifteenth century. Only six leaves of M survive; however, before this manuscript was dismantled the Abbot of Hersfeld lent the manuscript to Sigismund Gelenius , who used it in preparing the text of the second Froben edition ( G ). The dates and relationship of V and M were long disputed until 1936 when R. P. Robinson demonstrated persuasively that V

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