Philological and Historical Commentary on Ammianus Marcellinus

Philological and Historical Commentary on Ammianus Marcellinus XXX The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/am Philological and Historical Commentary on Ammianus Marcellinus XXX By J. den Boeft J.W. Drijvers D. den Hengst H.C. Teitler LEIDEN • BOSTON 2015 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Philological and historical commentary on Ammianus Marcellinus XXX / by J. den Boeft, J.W. Drijvers, D. den Hengst, H.C. Teitler. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-29995-5 (hardback : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-90-04-30092-7 (e-book) 1. Ammianus Marcellinus. Rerum gestarum libri. 2. Rome–History–Empire, 284-476–Historiography. I. Boeft, J. den, author. II. Drijvers, Jan Willem, author. III. Hengst, Daniël den, author. IV. Teitler, H. C., author. PA6205.P478 2015 937'.08–dc23 2015023018 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. ISBN 978-90-04-29995-5 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-30092-7 (e-book) Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhof, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. CONTENTS Preface.................................................................. vii Introduction . ix Chronology . xiii Legenda................................................................. xvii Commentary on Chapter 1 . 1 Commentary on Chapter 2 . 31 Commentary on Chapter 3 . 47 Commentary on Chapter 4 . 59 Commentary on Chapter 5 . 101 Commentary on Chapter 6 . 139 Commentary on Chapter 7 . 149 Commentary on Chapter 8 . 163 Commentary on Chapter 9 . 183 Commentary on Chapter 10. 195 Bibliography . 209 Indices.................................................................. 233 Maps.................................................................... 259 PREFACE Book 30 of the Res Gestae is the fth book about the reigns of the Panno- nian emperors Valentinian I and Valens. Just as he did in the previous books Ammianus alternates between afairs in the eastern and the western parts of the empire. However, this book brings the systematic account of events in the West to an end with the death of Valentinian I and the subsequent nom- ination of his infant son Valentinian II as Augustus. Ample space is reserved for the necrology of Valentinian. A large part of the book is taken up by a satirical description of the administration of justice, or rather injustice, under Valens. Ammianus also deals extensively with the afairs in Armenia and Valens’ diplomatic exchanges with the Persians, as well as with Valen- tinian’s dealings with the Sarmatae and Quadi in Pannonia and Valeria after he had paci ed the Alamannic king Macrianus. We thank friends and colleagues for their help and advice, Ines van de Wetering for the correction of our English, and the staf of the Fondation Hardt at Vandoeuvres where one of us enjoyed fruitful periods of study. Thanks are also due to Raphael Brendel for his bibliographical suggestions and to Erik Goosmann who gave the drafts of the maps their nal form. As usual our publisher Koninklijke Brill prepared the publication of this volume with professional care and dedication. J. den Boeft J.W. Drijvers D. den Hengst H.C. Teitler INTRODUCTION Book 30 ofers the reader a variety of events and situations in diferent parts of the Roman Empire. At rst sight there seems to be little cohesion between the respective reports, but when seen in a wider perspective the contours of a changing world become visible. The book opens with two chapters in which developments in faraway Armenia and Hiberia are described. The rst of these is devoted to the adventures of the Armenian king Papa. Both the Persians and the Romans sought an alliance with this capricious and clever man. The Romans seemed to succeed, but the emperor Valens regarded Papa as unreliable, a suspicion supported by Armenian sources. For this reason he was murdered during a banquet to which he had been invited by the Roman general Traianus. Ammianus condemns this scandalous violation of the rules of hospitality in no uncertain terms. The murder shows that the emperor Valens and his staf were convinced that the power of the Roman Empire in the East should remain unimpaired. This conviction continues in the second chapter, in which a long-standing enemy of Rome, the Persian king Sapor, enters the scene. He wants to change the conditions of the peace settlement of 363 with the emperor Jovian and to get direct control over Armenia and/or Hiberia. Understandably, this was unacceptable to the Romans, as was made clear to the king through diplomatic channels. During the whole of this afair the Roman authorities thought they were in full control of the situation, both militarily and diplomatically. Then all of a sudden there was a sea change: the Roman forces in the East had to be transferred to Thracia, in order to put a stop to the invasions totius Gothiae, a very strong phrase, the more so because this is the only instance in the Res Gestae of ‘Gothia’ denoting the Goths as one people. In the third chapter the attention of the reader is directed westward where the emperor Valentinian was actively engaged in strengthening the limes in Gaul, to prevent invasions into Roman territory. During these activ- ities he received a report about the barbarian invasions into Illyricum, which he studied very carefully before sending an o cial to collect further information. Having gathered and analyzed all the facts he concluded that imme- diate action against the invaders was vital, a typical reaction of a military professional. In this case, however, Valentinian’s staf strongly, and success- x introduction fully, advised against military action during the winter season. Moreover, they stressed the necessity of his presence on the Rhine border, which was threatened by Alamannic chieftains, among them the particularly danger- ous Macrianus, whom Valentinian had tried but failed to capture during a raid led by himself. Now peace was made with this very man; later he proved to be a faithful ally. In the fourth chapter an entirely diferent subject is broached, namely the administration of justice. In two long chapters (28.1 and 29.1) Ammianus had shown that this had, in fact, become the administration of injustice, because both the prosecutors and the judges were guilty of alarming viola- tions of the laws. Now it is the turn of the lawyers to be at the receiving end of Ammianus’ total disgust with their pathetic conduct. The author himself had sufered from this, as he writes in an enigmatic phrase. In a longish satirical description, in which hyperbolic language abounds, the sorry state of the legal profession in Antioch is laid out. It is, in some way, the counter- part of chapter 28.1, in which the city of Rome witnesses a series of shocking cases of injustice perpetrated by dishonest judges. In chapter ve Valentinian leads the postponed military campaign into Pannonia to punish the Sarmatae and the Quadi, and also to nd out why the Roman authorities had failed to prevent the invasions. He meets the PPO Probus, whom he had disliked from the moment he met him for the rst time, and learns that the people hated this man for his harsh methods. He knew the emperor’s constant need for money and tried to atter him by fully supporting his heavy tax levies, as a result of which the people lost both their possessions and their zest for living. The entire chapter testi es to the strangely incoherent behaviour of the emperor: during the purely military actions he showed his harshness; when punishing high-ranking o cials he tended to be far less severe than towards people of a lower order; although the feelings of the taxpayers were known to him, he continued to exploit them. The reader meets a man with a doubtless considerable military experience, but an underdeveloped understanding of the feelings of both ordinary and aristocratic people and a distressing inclination towards cruelty. In the last part of the chapter a few indisputable omina of his approaching death are mentioned. The brief sixth chapter is entirely devoted to a respectful description of Valentinian’s death, which was caused by apoplexy. Although the emperor did not lose his consciousness, he was unable to speak, which deprived the historian of the possibility to allow him a valedictory speech, which might have explained the ideas and ideals of this strange man. Instead, the reader is ofered an extensive necrology in not fewer than introduction xi seven pages in the Teubneriana, divided into three chapters by Adrien de Valois. The rst of these provides a very brief survey of the career of Valentinian’s father Gratianus, a physically strong man with a military career which, in spite of some mishaps, was good enough to give his son a ying start, comparable to Jovian’s sudden rise, described by Ammianus in Book 25. Next, the author deals briey with Valentinian’s praiseworthy military feats in various places and situations. Ammianus adds that these successes were partly ascribable to his generals, but that Valentinian himself had performed well, too (egisse complura), especially against the Alamans; they had been informed of the death of Julian, whom they feared, and this had raised their ghting spirit.

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