The Problems Posed by Contemporaneity for Late Antique Historiography

• Autores: Arnaldo Marcone
• Localización: Illinois classical studies, ISSN 0363-1923, Vol. 48, Nº. 1-2, 2023, págs. 146-158
• Idioma: inglés
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  • Writing history about contemporary events or events that are not recent, but in the political climate of the day are considered to be controversial, is notoriously opus plenum aleae ("a dangerous task"), and carries risks of various kinds. My discussion will address essentially the Res Gestae of Ammianus Marcellinus, in particular the last books. Especially at the beginning of Book 26 (1.1), the Antiochene historian, in treating the issue of the perils inherent in the writing of contemporary history, is working a topos exploited in various ways in earlier historiography. Ammianus employs this in order to illustrate the novel circumstances in which he would continue to compose his work in accordance with his original intention. It must be considered that in the prologue to Book 28, in particular, Ammianus admits that he might have been led to eliminate an account of the trials in Rome completely from his narrative because he found them frightening due to the lamentable way these events developed: "lamentable massacres, and I could wish that everlasting silence had consigned these to oblivion." The prologue serves in fact to introduce into the narrative the criterion of the historian's discretionary choice, pressing the case for the necessity of narrating those events in a selective way and also to do so with some unavoidable omissions