The Roman History (Res Gestae)

He was a Greek, but he was certainly free-born, as he describes himself, and well-born, as Henricus Valesius Henri de Valois proves—I do not know why he also boasts of the vice of those who betake themselves to studies when already of advanced age (which he himself certainly did not know)—and hence, why was he not educated in the skill of both languages? Wherefore, although he calls himself a Greek several times, nevertheless in Book 22, Chapter 9, writing what we say falls, he demonstrates that he does not renounce his Roman origin. As if that laborious mass, the variety of things, the series of history going through so many regions of the earth, the caution for sincere faith and truth, and the declaration of a great spirit itself, shining wonderfully in these writings—nay, the speech itself, if not of the best age and quality, is certainly so elaborated that it is clear it was not then temporary and sudden, nor seized in a brief moment, but one to which he had been devoted for a long time by leaning toward better things, almost declaring that throughout the entire time of his military life, he had set aside his occasions in various conveniences and relaxations, which he seriously spent upon himself, so that perhaps even then he gathered commentaries, to be expanded and ornamented more elegantly and eloquently at some time later. Thus, having been finished through military service, so that he might not perish in idleness upon retiring to a tranquil hearth, or waste time by reporting many pleasant or foreign things in circles and deceiving most people, as he shows others did at Rome then, he preferred to plead the cause of posterity by declaring the integrity of his mind in writing a scrupulous history.

Wherefore, he was indeed worthy to be published among this people inhabiting the edge of the ocean—whom he shows he knew only of a better quality—mentioning together the Batavians and the Heruli who almost perpetually tended along with them, although they were most distinct in regions and origin, yet meeting in virtue and military glory. He was published so that the reason for a nearer time might be known, as far as ability allows, and the manifold supplements for the training of Roman armies from these small regions, which were eventually emptied from there as well, could be sought to support the ruins of the failing empire everywhere. This man, I say, deserved to be published (and it is clear that the opinion of others has long been the same), that Ammianus, not naked as before and covered in a multitude of foul filth, but dressed and purified with as much adornment as could be. This certainly happened in our age, in which two men of note handled that history with such chastity that, whereas at the beginning it still presented nothing but confused lineaments of its own nobility—or rather, had verses composed of certain poorly mixed letters, containing old wives' charms and things to be mumbled incongruously rather than an articulated expression of a good mind and human sentiment—now it recognizes itself splendidly, and like a resurrected phoenix or an exile reborn after thirteen centuries, it shows itself. Therefore, I adore the memory of these men, and I kiss the lucubrations published with such useful and extraordinary profit. I consider these works worthy of cedar, filled with good aids for students and bearing the specimen of variety to be demanded in a learned man, and finally, the flattest and unique paths to erudition, wisdom, and eloquence; and I have experienced what I can. Thus, while my whole life has often given thanks to Fridericus Lindebrogius Friedrich Lindenbrog and Henricus Valesius Henri de Valois, I have congratulated myself greatly for this writer and for the commentaries themselves, when ten years ago I understood at Paris that everything was being restored by Valesius's brother, not without extraordinary addition; for I did not doubt that some things would proceed better in Ammianus from a previously unseen codex; and I awaited the commentaries themselves, polished and increased by the fruitful hand which they had received over so many years from the author who was never unmindful of them. Both of which, having been performed splendidly, the entire cohort that sacred Minerva holds later saw with me with joy and recognized. And hence, I was able to be an advisor to the bookseller, that he should take care to have multiplied copies of that edition, in whatever way, exist in these workshops. But when he drove me to open up whether or not something better could be seen there, and contended that this should be done especially by me if it were possible, I had to deal with him more simply, which I will now repeat to you, my reader, so that you may know in what parts I could have desired something in that most polished edition, and to scorn what was boasted too gloriously by Hadrianus Hadrian Valesius about that edition.