Ammianus Marcellinus, occasionally anglicised as Ammian, was a Roman soldier and historian who wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from antiquity. Written in Latin and known as the Res gestae, his work chronicled the history of Rome from the accession of the Emperor Nerva in 96 to the death of Valens at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. Only the sections covering the period 353 to 378 survive.
Bust of Emperor Constantius II from Syria
The walls of Amida, built by Constantius II before the Siege of Amida of 359. Ammianus himself was present in the city until a day before its fall.
Title page to the 1533 editio princeps of books XXVII–XXXI of Res gestae, the first complete edition of the surviving books
Valens was Roman emperor from 364 to 378. Following a largely unremarkable military career, he was named co-emperor by his elder brother Valentinian I, who gave him the eastern half of the Roman Empire to rule. In 378, Valens was defeated and killed at the Battle of Adrianople against the invading Goths, which astonished contemporaries and marked the beginning of barbarian encroachment into Roman territory.
Marble bust possibly representing Valens or Honorius (Capitoline Museums)
A solidus of Valens with a pearl diadem and a roseate fibula
Reverse of a solidus of Valens, marked: restitutor reipublicae ("the restitutor of the Republic") and showing the emperor holding a vexillum and a globe supporting a Victory, who crowns him with a laurel wreath
Coin of Valens after his quinquennalia on 25 February 369, showing the three reigning emperors on the reverse marked: spes r p ("the hope of the Republic")
