Res Gestae (History)

Ammianus calls himself, in his closing words, a former soldier and a Greek. He served as an officer and took part in Julian’s Persian campaign of 363, which he describes in the first person. He wrote at Rome late in the century. The history originally began with the emperor Nerva; only books 14 to 31 survive.

For Julian he is a contemporary and partly an eyewitness, and he admired him: the obituary in book 25 is a formal eulogy. That makes his criticisms count for more. He twice calls the law that barred Christians from teaching harsh (22.10.7; 25.4.20), and he says plainly that Julian’s toleration of all Christian parties was meant to set them against one another (22.5.4). Ammianus writes about Christianity as an outsider, without hostility and without much interest, and on church affairs he is brief.