The Historians of Late Antiquity Read Online Free PDF Page B

book. The earlier books clearly must have been narrated in far less detail than the books which survive. The first thirteen covered 257 years, for an average of about twenty years per book. The point at which the work shifted from severe compression to full and detailed narrative cannot be known, but Matthews (1989: 27) estimates that if it occurred atbook 11 with the accession of Constantius in 337, the ten earlier books would have covered an average of twenty-five years per book, and if it occurred earlier, say in the seventh book with Constantine’s defeat of Licinius in 324, the first six books would have covered an average of forty years per book.
    The disparity between the lost portion and the surviving portion of the work, both in their scope and in the research methods necessary for their writing, once led some scholars to suggest that Ammianus was the author of two entirely separate works. Adherents to this theory argued that the first work covered the period from Nerva to perhaps the accession of Constantine, and the second work, of which we possess the second part, would have covered the period from Constantine to Adrianople with the sustained level of detail found in the surviving books. This theory is generally not accepted by scholars today. Careful study of the parts of the extant books which refer back to events of the lost books (Barnes 1998: 213–17; Frakes 1995; Gilliam 1972) reveals almost no information about that ill-recorded period that we do not already know from other sources, suggesting that the coverage could not have been especially detailed. Similarly, some important information about the second and third century, of the sort which would presumably have been covered in a full and detailed account, is provided in the surviving part of the work apparently for the first time. Moreover, some of the formulas used to refer back to lost material that would have been in the supposed first work are identical to formulas used to refer to material that would have been in the supposed second work. One might think that different terminology would be required when directing the reader to an entirely separate work than would be used to remind the reader of an episode related earlier in the book at hand.
    Even the portion of the work that remains is quite unbalanced in the density of its coverage. Books 15 to 19 treat about six years of events in the careers of Constantius and Julian, dedicating approximately the same amount of space to each ruler at a rate of only slightly more than a year per book. The treatment of Julian as sole ruler in books 20 to 25 covers about four years in six books, at a rate of only two-thirds of a year per book. The last six books, however, cover fifteen years, at a rate of two and a half years per book. The figure of Julian is central to Ammianus’ project, and his coverage of even the near-contemporary reigns of Valens and Valentinian is sketchy compared to the space allotted to the Apostate. It is not difficult to imagine, then, that Ammianus could have coveredearlier centuries only in outline form. Just as his treatment of Constantius, Jovian, Valentinian, and Valens is largely intended to make Julian shine brighter by contrast, so the lost books may have served largely to provide models and themes of past heroism that would recur in the Julian narrative.
    Barnes has recently suggested that the manuscript numeration of the Res Gestae is incorrect, and that the original work contained thirty-six, not thirty-one, books (1998: 28–31). He points out that thirty-one is an unusual and unwieldy number of books, that some ancient historians, such as Tacitus, arranged their material in hexads, and that the eighteen surviving books of Ammianus do in fact divide fairly well into groups of six. He postulates the following book division: 1–6, Nerva to Diocletian (96–305); 7–12, Constantine (306–37); 13–18, Constantius’ rise to sole power (337–53). He further argues, less