Ammianus’ Julian. Narrative and genre in the Res Gestae

272 Pages·2016·1.35 MB·English

by  Ross

OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,25/5/2016,SPi
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’
Ammianus Julian
Narrative and Genre in the Res Gestae
ALAN J. ROSS
1
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Preface
Buttoanticipatethosewhomightthinkthatone’sonlysource
was the history of Ammianus Marcellinus (or even of Edward
Gibbon), I have included at the end of the book a partial
bibliography.1
ThisextractistakenfromtheprefacetoGoreVidal’shistoricalnovel
Julian. There are few such novels set in Late Antiquity, and the
existenceofonethattakesasitsprotagonistanemperorwhoreigned
forlessthantwentymonthsistestamenttothecontinuedfascination
that the last ruling member of the house of Constantine, the last
pagan emperor, and also the first emperor to be brought up a
Christian, holds in today’s world. At this point in his preface, Vidal
offers a gentle correction to his earlier claim that he had not read as
muchinpreparationofhisJulianasRobertGraveshadforI,Claudius.
Nodoubthisdeclarationisdesignedtoactasanelegantunderstate-
ment, a captatio to his reader, and a mark of deference to another
great author of historical novels, but the way in which he corrects
himself neatly encapsulates the position that Ammianus holds for
modernreaders,historians,ornovelists,astheauthorofthedomin-
antancientnarrativeofJulian’sreign.TobeginastudyofJulianone
turnsfirsttoAmmianus.
Thisisperhapsacuriousphenomenon,consideringthattheshort
life and reign of Julian is one of the best attested of any Roman
emperor.2 Indeed no other emperor has left such a rich corpus of
his writings, but their largely philosophical and rhetorical nature
often requires modern readers to look elsewhere for, at the very
least, a chronological framework of his military and political career.
Other narrative accounts either have been lost or are now heavily
fragmentary, leaving only Ammianus able to fulfil this role.3
1 Vidal1976,ANote(priortop.1),anadditiontothereprintofthefirstedition
from1964.
2 Elm 2012b, 1, who also notes that modern studies of Julian often overlook or
marginalizeJulian’sownwritings.
3 Chapter1discussestherelationshipbetweenAmmianus,Eunapius,andZosimus.
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vi Preface
Additionally, the other historical narrative mentioned by Vidal, that
of Edward Gibbon, is largely responsible for ensuring Ammianus’
dominanceasthenarrativesourceforthehistoryofthesecondhalfof
the fourth century and of Julian particularly. Gibbon’s portrayal of
Ammianus as an ‘accurate and faithful guide’ has helped ensure a
position of precedence for the latter over other contemporary
accounts of Julian, even those penned by the emperor himself.
Narrative, particularly Ammianus’ classicizing historiographical
narrative, is more seductive as historical source material because it
appearstoofferwhatotheraccountsofJuliandonot,acombination
of completeness and cool detached authority in comparison to the
openly partisan accounts of contemporaries; or as Gibbon put it,
Ammianuswasfreefromthe‘prejudicesandpassions’ofhispeers.4
The surviving eighteen books of Ammianus’ Res Gestae offer an
unmatched narrative of the quarter century from 353 to 378 in
terms of detail, vividness of presentation, and geographical scope.
Of course, there is far more in the Res Gestae than Julian, but as
Julian’s latest biographer remarked, Julian ‘protrudes like a moun-
tain’ from Ammianus’ narrative.5
Not all modern critics of Julian’s reign adopt as mechanical a
positionasonerecenthistorian,whointroduceshisstudyofJulian’s
Persian campaign of 363 by proclaiming ‘like nearly all modern
readers, I base my account on Ammianus and supplement it with
Zosimus and Libanius, usually believing Ammianus in cases of dis-
agreement’,6 but often historical biographies of Julian have gained
greaterpraiseandcriticalacceptancethemorecloselytheyadhereto
Ammianus’ version of the years 355–363. Thus Bidez in his Vie de
Julien(forwhomAmmianusis‘themostcomplete,themostdetailed,
themostpicturesqueandthemosttruthful’ofcontemporarywriters
on Julian),7 Browning,whopresents Ammianus as an unprejudiced,
faircriticinhisTheEmperorJulian,8andmorerecentlyRosen,inhis
4 Gibbon1776–88,1.1073. 5 Rosen2006,23.
6 Lendon2005,439.HeemployssimilarmethodologyforthebattleofStrasbourg
in357,p.433.
7 Bidez1930,337.Bidezregarded Ammianusasanaccurateenoughreaderand
reporterofJulian’sworkstoincludethelettertoConstantiusthatappearsat20.8.5–10
withinhisBudéeditionofJulian’sletters(no.17b,1960,23–6).Thereisnodoubtthat,
attheveryleast,thewordsareAmmianus’.
8 Browning1975,225.
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Preface vii
Julian: Kaiser, Gott und Christenhasser9 have generally fared better
than Bowersock, who severely undervalued Ammianus, and Atha-
nassiadi, who ignored him entirely, instead privileging Julian’s own
writings over any other source.10 Nonetheless, all biographers of
Julian, understandably, have the habit of sifting out details from the
Res Gestae that they value above those offered by parallel accounts,
oftenwithoutstudyingAmmianus’depictionofJuliansystematically.
Equally, discussions of Julian within wider studies of Ammianus
have often focused on how well Ammianus’ depiction stands up
against comparable accounts (with varying conclusions11), or on
individual aspects of Julian’s reign, especially his religion. Julian
plays an important role in Rike’s explication of the religious system
at play within the Res Gestae, particularly Julian’s relation to cultic
activity.12TheonlystudydevotedexclusivelytoAmmianus’Julianis
a thirty-page chapter by one of the French contributors to the Budé
edition, Jacques Fontaine, published in 1978 within a collection of
essays devoted to the reception of Julian from the fourth through
to the eighteenth century. He offers a commentary-like survey of
Ammianus’ representation of certain key moments in Julian’s reign,
beginning from the important proposition, often downplayed, that
Ammianuswrotespecificallyforawesternaudienceandasonewho
hadspent most of his careerin close proximity to Julian. Ielaborate
on the first point in Chapter1, and take a rather more cautious
9 RosenhasasomewhatschizophrenicrelationshipwithAmmianus,sometimes
followinghimclosely,andatothersdisagreeingmarkedly,particularly,forexample,
in his central and contentious point that Julian converted to paganism only upon
receivingthenewsofConstantius’death,contraAmmianus22.5.1;2006,87.
10 BowersockdemotesAmmianus’valueasanindependent witnesstoJulianby
suggestinghewaslargelydependentonEunapius,who,inBowersock’sview,isthe
mostreliablesourceforJulianduetohisaccesstoOribasius(Bowersock1978,6–8,cf.
Tomlin’scuttingreview,1980);Athanassiadi’smethodology(1981)leftheropento
accusationsofcreatinganoverlysympatheticpictureofJuliananddownplayingthe
politicalandmilitarycontextofthereign(see,e.g.,denBoeft’scomments,1994,412).
SheevendescribesherselfopenlyasJulian’s‘hagiographer’intherobustapologiato
thesecondedition(1992,viii).
11 Barnes(1998,143–65)focusesonAmmianus’representationofthreeaspectsof
Julian’sreign,hisactivitiesinGaul,hisrelationtoreligion,andthePersianexpedition.
AccordingtoBarnes,Ammianus‘goesbadlywrong’,forexample,inhisinterpretation
of Julian’s decision to burn his fleet at Ctesiphon, 1998, 164. Matthews displays a
characteristicallymorepositiveassessmentinhiscommentary-likesurveyofBooks15
to25,Matthews1989,81–180.Cf.Blockley’searlierdescriptive approach, Blockley
1975,73–103.
12 Rike1987,Chapters2and3,pp.37–86.
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viii Preface
approach to the biographical assumption of the second, especially
regarding Ammianus’ presentation of himself as a character within
his text. Fontaine makes an important contribution to the study of
Ammianus’ Julian, but the space available to him allows only a
cursory overview of the subject, and his work predates the advances
madebytherecentboominAmmianeanstudies.
The almost four decades since the appearance of Fontaine’s essay
haveseenasteadyshiftinattitudestowardsAmmianus’textandthe
natureofitsrelationshipbothwiththeliteraryenvironmentinwhich
itwascomposedandthehistoricalworldthatitpurportstorepresent,
steadily moving away from the Gibbonian view of faithfulness and
accuracy. John Matthew’s compendious The Roman Empire of Am-
mianus of 1989 offers an Ammianus who resembles Gibbon’s
closely;13 a dependable and inquisitive investigator whose testimony
is wholly based on his experiences during his military career and
investigationsamongcontemporaries,Ammianuscanbereliedonto
illuminate the world he inhabited. Matthews’ book was of necessary
importancetorehabilitateAmmianus,particularlyintheAnglophone
world, from the views of the Marxist historian E. A. Thompson,
whose book of half a century earlier had argued from the same
biographical details for an Ammianus whose Antiochene curial
statusandclassconsciousnesshaddeeplycolouredhisrepresentation
of several facets of his history, particularly the careers of Ursicinus
and Gallus.14 Matthews’ book overall takes a positivist approach to
Ammianus, but it altered scholarly consensus on several important
issues,particularlythesinglecompositionofthework,andtheAnti-
ocheneoriginsofitsauthor.15
IfMatthewsrevivedanapproachakintoGibbon’s,thennineyears
later Barnes, to some extent, revived Thompson’s. Although Barnes
does not deduce a single, strong ideological bent in Ammianus
13 Matthews’RomanEmpiremayfollowGibboninitsattitudetoAmmianus,but
itsformismodelledonSyme’sTacitus(1958)andSallust(1964),providinganample
analyticretellingofAmmianus’narrative,followedbythematicchapters.
14 Thompson1947.
15 Thelatterissue,particularly asrelated tothequestion ofwhether Ammianus
wastherecipientofLibanius’Ep.1063,producedaflurryofdebateinthesubsequent
decade (Bowersock 1990, 247–8; Fornara 1992a; Matthews’ own restatement at
greater length 1994), which died down by the end of the 1990s largely thanks to
Barnes1998,54–64.Kellysubsequentlyhaspouredcoldwaterontheimportanceof
the identification, by noting that ‘the information gleaned [from the letter] can be
mostly...inferredfromelsewhere’(Kelly2008,114).
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Preface ix
comparabletoThompson’sbourgeoishistorian,hedoeschallengethe
view of Ammianus the faithful guide, instead strongly arguing for a
historianwhosegreatnessrests onhisabilityto sculpt hisown,even
idiosyncratic, version of reality through a combination of careful
structuring, emphasis, omission, and downright distortion. The
book is full of brilliant observations, such as that Ammianus com-
posed in a hexadic structure,16 and that there must have been more
lostbooksthanthetransmittednumberingallows.17Oneofitsmost
importantconclusionsrelatestoreligion,anissuethatMatthewshad
largelyleftuntouched(asindeedhadThompson).Barneshaslittleto
add to Rike’s description of the Res Gestae’s ‘fundamentally consist-
ent metaphysical scheme’,18 but he makes the essential and related
pointthatAmmianusispolemically,ifsubtly,hostiletoChristianity.19
For all its merits, however, Barnes’ book is largely negative in its
methodology, revising or rejecting views of several modern scholars
andpointingtoAmmianus’partialityandevenunsoundjudgement,
despiteclaimingapositiveconclusion:Ammianusisagreathistorian
because‘hisResGestaeexhibitthecreativeandimaginativepowersof
anovelist’.20Itisaratherunexpectedconclusiontoabookthatbegins
with a preface in which Barnes asserts the continued strength of his
‘conviction that Ammianus failed in his obligation as a historian to
strive to transcend personal bias’.21 The juxtaposition does reveal,
however,thatBarnes(indeedlikeMatthews)isfundamentallyinter-
ested in whether Ammianus was ‘correct’ in his presentation of the
worldof thelaterfourthcentury,ratherthantheliterary qualitiesof
theworldcreatedwithinthetextoftheResGestaeitself.
Barnes’ and Matthews’ studies are fundamentally historically
orientated, even if Barnes had set out to offer a more literary study
of Ammianus.22 Contemporary trends in scholarship underpinned
their decision to view the work of an ancient historian as primarily
16 A feature which aligns Ammianus with Tacitus. For more on Ammianus’
relationshipwithTacitus,seeChapters2.2and3.2.
17 Cameron’sadaptationofBarnes’theory(1998,27–31),thattherewereinfact
twenty-threelostbooks(ascribecorruptedthexxiiiiofthefirstextantbooktoxiiii),
missesBarnes’centralpointthatAmmianuswroteinhexads.2011,750–1.
18 Barnes1998,167.
19 Barnes1998,principally79–94butalso46–50and167–71.
20 Barnes1998,198. 21 Barnes1998,viii.
22 Barnes’incongruousdescriptionofAuerbach’s1946workMimesisas‘aclassic
of modern literary criticism’ fully justifies Cameron’s observation that ‘Barnes is
innocentofcontemporaryliterarytheory’,1999,354.