AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS, Roman historian, was born about A.D. 325-330 at Antioch; the date of his death is unknown but he must have lived till 391, as he mentions Aurelius Victor as the city prefect for that year. He was a Greek of noble birth. He entered the army at an early age and was sent to serve under Ursicinus, governor of Nisibis and magister militae. He returned to Italy with Ursicinus, when he was recalled by Constantius II. and accompanied him on the expedition against Silvanus the Frank. With Ursicinus he went twice to the East and barely escaped with his life from Amida or Amid (mod. Diarbekr), when it was taken by the Persian king Shapur (Sapor) II. When Ursicinus lost his office and the favour of Constantius, Ammianus seems to have shared his downfall; but under Julian, Constantius's successor, he regained his position. He accompanied Julian in his campaigns against the Alamanni and the Persians; after the death of Julian he took part in the retreat of Jovian as far as Antioch, where he was living in 371. Eventually he settled in Rome, where, at an advanced age, he wrote (in Latin) a history of the Roman empire from the accession of Nerva to the death of Valens (96-378), thus forming a continuation of the work of Tacitus. This history (Rerunr Gestarum Libri XXXI.) was origi nally in 31 books; of these the first 13 are lost, the 18 which remain cover the period from 353 to 378. It is a clear, comprehen sive and impartial account of events by a contemporary of sol dierly honesty, independent judgment and wide reading. His style is generally harsh, often pompous and extremely obscure, occasion ally even journalistic in tone, but the author's foreign origin and his military life and training partially explain this. Further, the work being intended for public recitation, some rhetorical em bellishment was necessary, even at the cost of simplicity. Though a professional soldier Ammianus gives excellent pictures of social and economic problems, and in his attitude to the non-Roman peoples of the empire he is far more broad-minded than Livy and Tacitus. In his description of the empire—the exhaustion pro duced by excessive taxation, the financial ruin of the middle classes, the progressive decline in the morale of the army—we find the explanation of its fall before the Goths 20 years after his death. The work was discovered by Poggio, who copied the original ms. Editio princeps (bks. 14-26) by Sabinus, i474; completed by Accursius, ; with variorum notes, by Wagner-Erfurdt, 1808. Later editions of text, V. E. Gardthausen, ; C. U. Clark, 1910-15. English translations by P. Holland, 1609; C. D. Yonge, 1862. See F. Liesen berg, Der Sprache des Ammianas Marcellinus (1888-9o) ; Max Budinger, Ammianus Marcellinus and die Eigenart seines Geschicht werkes (1895) ; S. Dill, Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire (1898) ; T. R. Glover, Life and Letters in the Fourth Century (190I) ; A. M. Harmon, "The Clausula in Ammianus Marcel linus," Conn. Acad. Arts and Sci., Trans., vol. xvi, pp. 119-245 (New Haven, 191o) ; W. Ennslin, Zur Geschichtsschreibwng and Weltan schauung des Amimianus Marcellinus (1923).