The Hellenism of Ammianus Marcellinus

Abstract

Abstract

Writing towards the end of the fourth century AD, the historian Ammianus Marcellinus, a Greek writing in Latin (probably in Rome), demonstrates for us in several ways the strength of the tradition of Hellenism in the Late Roman Empire. In the epilogue, the final impression he wanted to leave of his work, he specifically tells us he wrote of the events from the principate of Nerva (96 AD) to the death of Valens (378 AD) ‘as a former soldier and a Greek’ (‘ut miles et Graecus' 31.16.9).