Ammianus' Julian: Narrative and Genre in the Res Gestae Oxford Classical Monographs by Alan J. Ross (review)

The surviving eighteen books of the Res Gestae of Ammianus Marcellinus are important for our knowledge of the later Roman Empire, especially for political and military events in the years 353–378. The "former soldier and Greek" (31.16.9) had participated in campaigns under Ursicinus, and later served during Julian's ill-fated invasion of Persia in 363. The short reign of Julian as sole emperor from 361–363 also includes that emperor's shift from Christianity to paganism. Ammianus' history, written in Latin even though his first language was Greek, preserves a first-hand account of Julian's reign (and can be used for comparison and contrast with other primary sources, such as Aurelius Victor, Gregory Nazianzus, Libanius, Ambrosiaster, and Julian's own works). This new book by Alan J. Ross, Lecturer in Roman History at the University of Southampton and Visiting Research Fellow at University College, Dublin, re-examines Ammianus' treatment of Julian. Based upon his 2011 D.Phil. thesis at the University of Oxford, Ross explicitly tries to avoid an analysis based on Ammianus' biography or his intended audience, but instead looks at the treatment of Julian in the Res Gestae from the point of view of narratology and intertextuality (building upon Gavin Kelly's 2008 Cambridge University Press book Ammianus Marcellinus: The Allusive Historian).

After a twelve-page preface giving a distillation of the history of the reception of Ammianus' treatment of Julian, the first chapter ("In Search of a Latin Julian") lays out the argument of the book and posits that "Julian is the undoubted focus of the Res Gestae" (9). Ross suggests that the preface at the beginning of Book 15 was necessary because it was the "first complete book to deal with Julian's reign as Caesar" (10). While avoiding the issue of a specific intended audience, he argues that "Ammianus presents himself as a prime interpreter of Julian's reign to a western audience" (24). Explicitly in this chapter, and throughout, Ross is influenced by literary theory (following works by Irene De Jong) and suggests that "the participant may act as an interpretive guide for the primary narratee, and by extension for his readers" (28). He clarifies that "narratology will be used to evaluate how Ammianus' narrator presents Julian to the primary narratee. . . . Intertextuality, by contrast, necessarily looks at a text's external relationships" (29).

Chapter 2 ("The Narrator and the Participant: Gallus and Silvanus in Preparation for Julian") analyzes how Ammianus presented those two historical figures and how they anticipate and foreshadow aspects of his later treatment of Julian's usurpation. Scholars have noted the murkiness of the narrative here. While partly due to Ammianus' desire to protect the memory of his general Ursicinus (as many scholars have suggested: 54 and 81), Ross makes some interesting observations about how Ammianus may have been shading his narrative here as part of a compositional strategy.

Chapter 3 ("Julian's Elevation: Tradition and Innovation in Speech and Narrative") examines how Ammianus treats the elevation of Julian to Caesar by Constantius II. Influenced by the work of Sabine MacCormack, as well as by comparisons to Sallust and Tacitus, Ross analyzes how Ammianus uses speeches and ceremonies to frame and re-frame both Constantius and Julian.

In Chapter 4 ("Strasbourg: Legitimizing Julian), Ross expands on how Ammianus uses the Battle of Strasbourg to describe Julian's growing strengths as a military commander, and as a contrast to Constantius II's adventus for his defeat of the usurper Magnentius. While this is not in and of itself radical, Ross carefully critiques Kimberly Kagan's argument for "face-of-battle" narrative style in her 2006 book The Eye of Command (itself building on John Keegan's 1976 book The Face of Battle) to undercut Constantius by stressing his absence from the Battle of Amida, and thus supporting Julian who commanded in...