The Later Roman Empire: (a.D. 354-378) (Penguin Classics) - Softcover

Marcellinus, Ammianus

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140444068 ISBN 13: 9780140444063

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 1986

Synopsis

Ammianus Marcellinus was the last great Roman historian, and his writings rank alongside those of Livy and Tacitus. The Later Roman Empire chronicles a period of twenty-five years during Marcellinus' own lifetime, covering the reigns of Constantius, Julian, Jovian, Valentinian I, and Valens, and providing eyewitness accounts of significant military events including the Battle of Strasbourg and the Goth's Revolt. Portraying a time of rapid and dramatic change, Marcellinus describes an Empire exhausted by excessive taxation, corruption, the financial ruin of the middle classes and the progressive decline in the morale of the army. In this magisterial depiction of the closing decades of the Roman Empire, we can see the seeds of events that were to lead to the fall of the city, just twenty years after Marcellinus' death.

About this title

About the Author:

Ammianus Marcellinus was the last great Roman historian, continuing the histories of Tacitus from AD 96 down to his own day. The first thirteen of his thirty-one books are lost: the remainder describe AD 354 - 378.

Walter Hamilton translated Plato's Symposium, the Gorgias, Phaedrus and Letters VII and VIII for Penguin Classics.

Andrew Wallace-Hadrill is Professor of Classics at Reading University. His books include Suetonius: the Scholar and his Caesars.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 1986
• ISBN 10: 0140444068
• ISBN 13: 9780140444063
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 512
• Editor: Wallace-Hadrill Andrew