Abstract

Ammianus Marcellinus is a careful manipulator of language and narrative structure. This article seeks to show through literary analysis that his description of the Emperor Constantius II ( ut cunctator et cautus, 14.10.14) is not meant to be a positive evaluation but a negative one, especially when compared with how Ammianus renders the Caesar Julian ( bellicosus ductor, 16.12.18), with consequences for how we should read Ammianus. Despite his failure to elaborate on Constantius’ second campaign in Raetia in 356 c.e. (16.12.15–16), or the possible loss of an earlier telling of the campaign via corruption of the textual transmission (Barnes 1998, 138), Ammianus’ is the fullest account available; and, in fact, there is enough in what we do know about the campaigning seasons of 354–59 on the northern frontiers to be able to discern Constantius and Julian’s strategies, and thus what each considered to be “achievement.”