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Final Books from Rome's Last Great Historian, September 4, 2008
This review is from: Ammianus Marcellinus: Roman History, Volume III, Books 27-31. Excerpta Valesiana (Loeb Classical Library No. 331) (English and Latin Edition) (Hardcover)
The closing of Ammianus' Roman History (circa 378 AD), announces the end of an epoch, not in Roman history of course, but in the approach literary men espoused to celebrate the glories of the Eternal City. History would no longer be written according to the model set first by Herodotus and perfected in Thucydides; for their students Livy, Tacitus and Sallust--that golden-penned progeny of writers in whom historiography became distinctly Latin--passed the last laurel branch to Ammianus, who would be the final Roman historian to don the crown. In lieu of the artful traditional models, colorless chronicles immerged that were centered principally on ecclesiastical affairs, while paying minimal lip-service to the secular dimension of Roman life. The epistle and panegyric also became standard, not for the sake of history per se, but to celebrate the deeds of emperors, consuls and generals, or to discuss theological issues; the interest here was in current events, not in history. Authors like Gregory of Tours and the Venerable Bede in the West and Evagrius Scholasticus and Procopius in the East, would set the tone for histories for many centuries to come. With that said, this volume covers the years 365-378 AD, during the reigns of Valentinian, Valens, Gratian and Valentinian II. Volume three is particularly fascinating; in it Ammianus, as one might expect, delivers the regular detailed sketches of Romans engaged in warfare with Persians, Moors and Germanic hordes (as a general himself and eyewitness of the events he describes, Ammianus captures the scene of the battles and vividly memorializes them in his writings). But what makes this volume unique is the attention Ammianus pays to corruption and vice in the upper-stratum of the imperial administration. Ammianus commits many pages to expose the epidemic of immorality within the senatorial families of Rome; and he also divulges the lamentable deeds of Valentinian and Valens, whose witch-hunts and murders spawned universal fear and outrage. Also, the dreaded Huns appear on the stage of history for the first time in this volume; and finally, the genesis of the Gothic wars are treated here; and with the disastrous battle of Hadrianople, Ammianus' Roman History comes to an abrupt end. [For more, see the reviews that are posted for all the editions of Ammianus' History available.] As an appendix to this volume, two epitomes of Roman history are present, entitled the Anonymous Valesius. The first is a compendium on Constantine the Great and it catalogues his lineage and summarizes his exploits as Augustus; therefore it fits comfortably before the first volume of Ammianus' work which begins with the reign of Caesar Gallus (353 AD). The second epitome is a brief history on the reign of Theoderic the Ostrogoth, which picks up on Ammianus' work about one-hundred years later (474-526 AD). Readers may find an abridged edition (Penguin Press) which is very good: it is a fresh translation and the wealth of annotations will be very helpful. Yet the Loeb edition is recommended: the bi-lingual text, comprehensive introductory essay, copious footnotes and comments, all together make this complete three-volume edition the best available.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Late Rome's Greatest Historian, October 28, 2011
This review is from: Ammianus Marcellinus: Roman History, Volume III, Books 27-31. Excerpta Valesiana (Loeb Classical Library No. 331) (English and Latin Edition) (Hardcover)
Since there are so many of these darn things the review shall be divided into three sections. First, a brief description of the Loeb series of books and their advantages/disadvantages. Second shall be my thoughts on the author himself, his accuracy, as well as his style and the style of his translator. This is of course only my opinion and should be treated as such. The final part shall review what this particular book actually covers. The Loeb series date back to the turn of the last century. They are designed for people with at least some knowledge of Greek or Latin. They are a sort of compromise between a straight English translation and an annotated copy of the original text. On the left page is printed the text in Greek or Latin depending on the language of the writer and on the right side is the text in English. For somebody who knows even a little Greek or Latin these texts are invaluable. You can try to read the text in the original language knowing that you can correct yourself by looking on the next page or you can read the text in translation and check the translation with the original for more detail. While some of the translations are excellent mostly they are merely serviceable since they are designed more as an aid to translation rather than a translation in themselves. Most of them follow the Greek or Latin very closely. These books are also very small, maybe just over a quarter the size of your average hardcover book. This means that you'll need to buy more than just one book to read a complete work. They are also somewhat pricey considering their size. The Loeb Collection is very large but most of the more famous works can be found in better (and cheaper) translations elsewhere. If you want to read a rarer book or read one in the original language then you can't do better than the Loeb Editions. There are three volumes of Ammianus' surviving works. Ammianus is the Tacitus of the 4th Century. His work originally picked up where Tacitus left off but only the portion from 353-378 AD has survived. His work is easy to read, generally accurate, and filled with exciting events and interesting characters. Ammianus was a career soldier who was an active participant in many of the events he describes. He knew personally many of the people who's deeds he describes. The real hero of his book is the emperor Julian. Julian the Apostate is a very sympathetic character to modern minds, and Ammianus both liked and admired him. Further sources on this period include Zosimus' 'Historia Nova' and the remains of Eunapius in 'The Classicising Roman Historians.' Ammianus was the last great Latin historian. All of those other sources are in Greek. A better translation would probably be the Penguin one called The Later Roman Empire, although the translation here is alright. The other Loeb editions are available here and here. This book deals with the reigns of Valentinian and Valens. It culminates in the infamous battle of Adrianople, in which Valens was killed and his army destroyed allowing the Gothic army to roam through Roman territory at will. As usual Ammianus remains our best source for all of this material. This volume also includes the Excerpta Valesiana, which is actually two separate works. The first work deals with the reign of Constantine and the second one deals with the fall of Rome and the reign of Theodoric the Goth. These were both presumably written under Theodoric and are written in dreadful Latin. It may seem strange to include these among Ammianus' work but it is the product of early twentieth-century thinking. In the beginning of his first book Rolfe actually felt the need to justify translating Ammianus due to his poor (ie: non-Golden Age) Latin. It was actually assumed for years that Ammianus wrote Latin badly due to not speaking it well since he was a native Greek-speaker, yet his Latin is simply the kind that all other writers of the period used. This is the danger of letting pure Classicists define an era, since they define quality by how closely it matches the language of Cicero and Virgil. When the era of the works is considered vulgar and uncouth the tendency is to group all of the works together. So that's why the Excerpta Valesiana is included here. It's a pretty small work so it can be tacked on at the end like a conclusion. Fortunately, the situation has changed a great deal in the last 30 years or so. You can now find translations of Zonaras, Eutropius, Aurelius Victor, The Historia Augusta ( Volume I, Volume II, and Volume III), Eunapius/Philostratus, Eusebius, Orosius, Socrates/Sozomen, Zosimus, The Classicising Fragmentary Roman Historians (Eunapius, Olympiodorus, Priscus, Malchus), etc.
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