Ammianus Marcellinus: Tacitus’ heir and Gibbon’s guide

Creating the Enemy: Ammianus Marcellinus' Double Digression on Huns and Alans (Res Gestae 31.2)

“…Kelly , 170 suggests that vicinity of allusions to the same author may be an indicator of the model, Virgil in this case (apart from the fact that favilla occurs in relation with the Aetna mons in Virgil and Ammianus, and only a few others: see ThLL I.1162.42 ad Aetnaeus and ThLLVI.380.63–5 ad favilla , in which lemmata RG 31.4.9 is quoted). Lucretius combines the notions of Aetnae ignes (6.639–40), turbine tanto (640) and favilla (690), but this may well have been the model for Virgil, instead of direct (or window‐) allusion by Ammianus, as no examples of direct allusion to Lucretius has been attested (Kelly , 170). Salemme (, 77–8) however makes an interesting case for Lucretian allusion (as Lucretius' Etna contains the air that thrusts out heated winds from the mountains).…”

“…The invasion of the eastern peoples is compared with a whirlwind (31.3.8: turbo ) and a hurling vulcano (4.9: favilla ), which complement the elements of air and fire to the comparisons of water and land that occurred earlier in the Res Gestae . The description of the great tsunami in 26.10.15–9 has been considered an omen to the disaster of Adrianople (see Kelly 2004, 163 and n.107; Kelly , 98–9), referred to in 31.5.12: inundarunt Italiam ex abditis Oceani partibus Teutones repente cum Cimbris (‘The Teutons with the Cimbri, coming from unknown parts of the ocean, suddenly overflowed Italy’) . The frequent comparisons with wild beasts provide the element of land in a series of comparisons of the barbarian invasions .…”

“…Salemme (, 77–8) however makes an interesting case for Lucretian allusion (as Lucretius' Etna contains the air that thrusts out heated winds from the mountains). Studies of Ammianus' use of Virgil, other than Kelly , are O'Brien and , who emphasizes Ammianus' ‘deep immersion in Vergil's imaginative cosmos’ (2007, 666), the Aeneid being ‘an organic part of Ammianus’ literary fabric' (2006, 298).…”

“…For Tacitus as a model: Kelly and , 16–22 and 175–89. Tacitus, unlike Virgil, is never mentioned by name in the surviving books, a sign of his lesser prestige in later antiquity (and not necessarily of absence of allusion in the RG ).…”

“…, 281, who, like Sabbah , 247, suppose that Herodotus here is not used directly as a source). Kelly , 183 points out that quotation of a source by name in digressions may be considered less prestigious than repeated quotation in the historical narrative. Feraco admits that in book 31, the presence of Herodotus can be assumed to be greater than in earlier parts of the work.…”