The Roman History

...who ought to have been imitated in the pursuit of truth. For he Ammianus Marcellinus noted the virtues and vices of princes with the highest integrity, as every excellent writer should. He accuses Julian referring to Emperor Julian the Apostate of having confused the Christian religion—"complete and simple" original: absolutam ac simplicem, as he puts it—with old wives' superstition; of having cruelly deprived Christians of the study of literature; and of having ordered the execution of the courtiers of Constantius Constantius II, Julian's predecessor and cousin. Yet, he also commended the same man's extraordinary virtues with singular eloquence: his supreme temperance, bravery, self-restraint, zeal for wisdom, and a justice greater than common reputation, which he confirms with the weightiest testimonies and examples. Now Ammianus was Greek by birth and (as he himself confesses) a soldier, the constant companion of Ursicinus, the Master of Horse original: equitum magistri; a high-ranking military official; indeed, he participated in nearly all the wars waged by the Romans in Europe and Asia during his own time. And those accounts remain intact, contained in eighteen books—that is, from the thirtieth year of the reign of Constantius until the death of Valens the Emperor who died at the Battle of Adrianople in 378 AD. For the preceding thirteen books Ammianus's original history consisted of 31 books; the first 13, covering the period from Nerva to Constantius II, are lost to history can easily be reconstructed from the writings of others. He began his work with Nerva, where Tacitus the most famous Roman historian of the 1st century AD had ended; he seems to have set Tacitus before himself as the one man above all others to be studied and imitated. In this, however, he differs from him: while Tacitus achieved the dignity of the Roman language as the times allowed, Ammianus, though using Latin words—and often not even Latin ones—wrote in a Greek manner...