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TAMQVAM FIGMENTVM HOMINIS: AMMIANUS, CONSTANTIUS II AND THE PORTRAYAL OF IMPERIAL RITUAL

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2015

Richard Flower
Richard Flower*
Affiliation:
University of Exeter
*
r.flower@exeter.ac.uk
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Extract

Constantius, as though the Temple of Janus had been closed and all enemies had been laid low, was longing to visit Rome and, following the death of Magnentius, to hold a triumph, without a victory title and after shedding Roman blood. For he did not himself defeat any belligerent nation or learn that any had been defeated through the courage of his commanders, nor did he add anything to the empire, and in dangerous circumstances he was never seen to lead from the front, nor even to be among the front ranks. But he wanted to display an exaggeratedly long procession, standards stiff with gold and the beauty of his attendants, to a population who were living more peacefully, neither anticipating nor wishing to see this or anything like it. For perhaps he was unaware that some earlier emperors had been content with lictors in peacetime, but when the heat of battle could not allow inactivity, one of them had entrusted himself to a small fishing boat, blasted by raging gales, another had followed the example of the Decii and offered up his life in a vow for the state, and another had himself explored the enemy camp alongside the regular soldiers; that, in short, various of them had won renown for magnificent deeds, and so committed their glories to the distinguished memory of posterity. …

When he was approaching the city, observing with a serene expression the respectful attendance of the Senate, and the venerable likenesses of the patrician families, he thought, not like Cineas, the legate of Pyrrhus, that a multitude of kings had been assembled together, but rather that this was the refuge of the whole world [cumque urbi propinquaret, senatus officia, reuerendasque patriciae stirpis effigies, ore sereno contemplans, non ut Cineas ille Pyrrhi legatus, in unum coactam multitudinem regum, sed asylum mundi totius adesse existimabat]. Next, when he turned his gaze to the general populace, he was astonished at the speed with which every type of men from everywhere had flowed into Rome. As though he were trying to terrify the Euphrates or the Rhine with the sight of arms, with the standards in front of him on each side, he sat alone in a golden chariot, glittering with the shimmer of many different precious stones, whose flashes seemed to produce a flickering light. After many others had preceded him, he was surrounded by dragons, woven from purple cloth and affixed to the golden, bejewelled tips of spears, open to the wind with their broad mouths and so hissing as though roused with anger, trailing the coils of their tails in the wind [eumque post antegressos multiplices alios, purpureis subtegminibus texti, circumdedere dracones, hastarum aureis gemmatisque summitatibus illigati, hiatu uasto perflabiles, et ideo uelut ira perciti sibilantes, caudarumque uolumina relinquentes in uentum]. Then there came a twin column of armed men, with shields and plumed helmets, shining with glittering light, clothed in gleaming cuirasses, with armoured horsemen, whom they call clibanarii, arranged among them, masked and protected by breastplates, encircled with iron bands, so that you might have thought them to be statues finished by the hand of Praxiteles, not men [sparsique catafracti equites, quos clibanarios dictitant, personati thoracum muniti tegminibus, et limbis ferreis cincti, ut Praxitelis manu polita crederes simulacra, non uiros]. Slender rings of metal plates, fitted to the curves of the body, clothed them, spread across all their limbs, so that, in whatever direction necessity moved their joints, their clothing moved likewise, since the joins had been made to fit so well.

When he was hailed as Augustus with favourable cries, [Constantius] did not shudder at the din that thundered from hills and shores, but showed himself unmoved, as he appeared in his provinces. For, when passing through high gates, he stooped his short body, and, keeping his gaze straight, as though his neck were fixed, he turned his head neither right nor left, as though an image of a man, and he was never seen to nod when the wheel shook, or to spit or wipe or rub his face or nose, or to move his hand [nam et corpus perhumile curuabat portas ingrediens celsas, et uelut collo munito, rectam aciem luminum tendens, nec dextra uultum nec laeua flectebat, tamquam figmentum hominis, nec, cum rota concuteret, nutans, nec spuens, aut os aut nasum tergens uel fricans, manumue agitans uisus est umquam]. Although this behaviour was an affectation, it, and other aspects of his more private life, were however indications of extraordinary endurance, granted to him alone, as it was given to be supposed.

This passage, which describes the aduentus of Constantius II into Rome in 357, is one of the best-known episodes in the Res Gestae of Ammianus Marcellinus. This historical work was completed by the retired military officer in around 390, with the surviving books covering the period from 353 to the aftermath of the Battle of Adrianople in 378. Unsurprisingly, this passage is also one of the most debated. Throughout his work, Ammianus regularly criticized Constantius as a weak, vicious ruler, influenced by women and, in particular, eunuchs, and so contrasted him with his cousin and successor Julian, the emperor who receives the most favourable treatment within this text. The degree and nature of criticism within this particular passage has, however, been the subject of a variety of wildly differing interpretations. It is clear that, at the outset, Ammianus is inveighing against the notion of holding a triumph for victory in a civil war, but there has been debate over whether Constantius was actually celebrating a triumph or merely the anniversary of his accession. Similarly, the description of the Senate as ‘the refuge of the whole world’ has been read in contrasting ways, being regarded as derogatory by Johannes Straub, as neutral, or even positive, by Pierre Dufraigne, and as respectful by R.C. Blockley. While this passage as a whole is generally read as an attack on Constantius for his pretentions to ill-deserved military glory, it also raises the question of whether Ammianus was also criticizing Constantius for the way in which he performed his aduentus, emphasizing his pompous and autocratic behaviour in order to contrast him with Julian, who preferred to behave more like a ciuilis princeps in public. Of course, such a reading almost inevitably produces a portrait of Ammianus as an impractically nostalgic figure, harking back to a style of rule which was anachronistic in the post-Diocletianic Later Roman Empire. In addition, Ammianus also presented Julian as performing an aduentus into Constantinople in 361, employing some phrases that were similar to those used to describe Constantius’ procession in 357. Furthermore, as John Matthews has illustrated, Ammianus’ presentations of the occasions when Julian eschewed late-antique imperial protocol are not without tinges of criticism, and his judgement on the propriety of different modes of imperial behaviour varied dependent on the context.

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Research Article
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The Classical Quarterly , Volume 65 , Issue 2 , December 2015 , pp. 822 - 835
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Copyright © The Classical Association 2015 

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References

1 Amm. 16.10.1–3, 5–11. All quotations from Ammianus are taken from the Teubner edition of W. Seyfarth, 1978.

2 See especially Amm. 14.11.2–4; 18.4.3; 21.16.16, as well as J.F. Matthews, The Roman Empire of Ammianus (London, 1989; repr. with a new introduction, Ann Arbor, 2008), 274–5; T.D. Barnes, Ammianus Marcellinus and the Representation of Historical Reality (Ithaca, 1998), 121, 127–8; G.A.J. Kelly, Ammianus Marcellinus: The Allusive Historian (Cambridge, 2008), 141–2.

3 S. MacCormack, Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, 1981), 41–2 states that no triumph took place, but that Ammianus criticized Constantius for his lack of warlike qualities. M. McCormick, Eternal Victory: Triumphal Rulership in Late Antiquity, Byzantium, and the Early Medieval West (Cambridge, 1986), 81–4 sees this as both a triumph and a uicennalia celebration, but regards Ammianus’ criticism as out of touch with fourth-century practice. P. Dufraigne, Adventus Augusti, adventus Christi: Recherche sur l'exploitation idéologique et littéraire d'un cérémonial dans l'antiquité tardive (Paris, 1994), 190, Barnes (n. 2), 134–5, Kelly, G.A.J., ‘The New Rome and the Old: Ammianus Marcellinus' silences on Constantinople’, CQ 53 (2003), 588–607 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 598 and Alan Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome (Oxford, 2011), 334 all read Ammianus as criticizing Constantius for holding a triumph for a civil war. Ammianus’ apparent criticism of Constantius celebrating victory in a civil war is also sometimes read as an indirect jibe at the ruling Emperor Theodosius I—see, for example, Dufraigne (n. 3), 194; S. Schmidt-Hofner, ‘Trajan und die symbolische Kommunikation bei kaiserlichen Rombesuchen in der Spätantike’, in R. Behrwald and C. Witschel (edd.), Rom in der Spätantike: historische Erinnerung im städtischen Raum (Stuttgart, 2012), 33–59, at 38.

4 J. Straub, Vom Herrscherideal in der Spätantike (Stuttgart, 1939; repr. 1964), 187; Dufraigne (n. 3), 191; R.C. Blockley, Ammianus Marcellinus: A Selection (Bristol, 1980), 31.

5 For Ammianus as measuring Constantius against a perceived standard of imperial deportment from an earlier age, see N. Baynes, Review of J. Vogt and E. Kornemann, Römische Geschichte, JRS 25 (1935), 81–7, at 87; P. de Jonge, Philological and Historical Commentary on Ammianus Marcellinus XVI (Groningen, 1972), 121; G. Sabbah, La méthode d'Ammien Marcellin: recherches sur la construction du discours historique dans les Res Gestae (Paris, 1978), 552; R. Klein, ‘Der Rombesuch des Kaiser Konstantius II im Jahre 357’, Athenaeum 57 (1979), 98–115, at 104; Blockley (n. 4), 32; McCormick (n. 3), 81; M. Roberts, ‘The treatment of narrative in late antique literature: Ammianus Marcellinus (16.10), Rutilius Namatianus, and Paulinus of Pella’, Philologus 132 (1988), 181–95, at 184; Dufraigne (n. 3), 187–94; Kelly (n. 3), 607 and (n. 2), 262–3.

6 Amm. 22.2.4: quo apud Constantinoplim mox comperto, effundebatur aetas omnis et sexus, tamquam demissum aliquem uisura de caelo. exceptus igitur tertium Iduum Decembrium uerecundis senatus officiis et popularium consonis plausibus, stipatusque armatorum et togatorum agminibus, uelut acie ducebatur instructa, omnium oculis in eum non modo contuitu destinato, sed cum admiratione magna defixis. While some terms used to describe the soldiers here are similar to parts of 16.10, references to statues and deceptive appearances are absent.

7 Matthews (n. 2), 236–7.

8 Matthews (n. 2), 231.

9 This view of Ammianus as a faithful reporter of Constantius’ ‘hieratic dignity’ was expressed in 1935 in Baynes (n. 5), 87. Similar ideas about ceremonial immobility were expressed soon afterwards in Straub (n. 4), 182 and M.P. Charlesworth, ‘Imperial deportment: two texts and some questions’, JRS 37 (1947), 34–8, at 38.

10 MacCormack (n. 3), 42, 44. See also S. MacCormack, ‘Change and continuity in late antiquity: the ceremony of adventus’, Historia 21 (1972), 721–52, at 736–7. R. MacMullen, ‘Some pictures in Ammianus Marcellinus’, Art Bulletin 46 (1964), 435–56 (repr. in R. MacMullen, Changes in the Roman Empire: Essays in the Ordinary [Princeton, 1990], 78–106), at 439 also used this passage to argue that, in late-antique ceremonies, life came to imitate art. For just a few examples of this passage being regarded as a description of the usual appearance of a late-antique aduentus, see de Jonge (n. 5), 120–1; Sabbah (n. 5), 429; Klein (n. 5), 103–4; Roberts (n. 5), 183–4; Classen, C.J., ‘Nec spuens aut os aut nasum tergens vel fricans (Amm. Marc. XVI 10, 10)’, RhM 131 (1988), 177–86Google Scholar, at 183–4; C. Kelly, ‘Emperors, government and bureaucracy’, in Averil Cameron and P.D.A. Garnsey (edd.), The Cambridge Ancient History, 13: The Late Empire, A.D. 337–425 (Cambridge, 1998), 138–83, at 142–3; Schmidt-Hofner (n. 3), 39–40. Dufraigne (n. 3), 187–94 regards this description of an aduentus as unusual, because the city amazes the visiting emperor more than he amazes it, but sees Constantius’ overall bearing as usual for such a ceremony, albeit with some elements of caricature.

11 M. Humphries, ‘From emperor to pope? Ceremonial, space, and authority at Rome from Constantine to Gregory the Great’, in K. Cooper and J. Hillner (edd.), Religion, Dynasty, and Patronage in Early Christian Rome, 300–900 (Cambridge, 2007), 21–58, at 27 also remarks on the frequent use of this passage.

12 For Sabine MacCormack, this transformation of the emperor into a statue, an icon, forms part of the development of imperial majesty and distance, which was also reflected in the artistic representations of aduentus, such as the largitio dish of Constantius in the Hermitage; see MacCormack (n. 3), 44.

13 See, for example, MacMullen (n. 10), 439; P. Stewart, Statues in Roman Society: Representation and Response (Oxford, 2003), 112–3; J.A. Francis, ‘Late antique visuality: blurring the boundaries between word and image, pagan and Christian’, in D. Brakke, D. Deliyannis and E. Watts (edd.), Shifting Cultural Frontiers in Late Antiquity (Farnham, 2012), 139–49, at 143–6.

14 B. Croke, ‘Reinventing Constantinople: Theodosius I's imprint on the imperial city’, in S. McGill, C. Sogno and E. Watts (edd.), From the Tetrarchs to the Theodosians: Later Roman History and Culture, 284–450 CE (Cambridge, 2010), 241–64, at 246–7, 249.

15 Julian, Letter to a Priest 292d–5b.

16 Julian, Letter to a Priest 294c. See also Bonfante, L. Warren, ‘Emperor, God and man in the IV century: Julian the Apostate and Ammianus Marcellinus’, PP 99 (1964), 401–27Google Scholar, at 408.

17 Julian, Letter to a Priest 293a–d. On this tension in the passage, see S. Elm, Sons of Hellenism, Fathers of the Church: Emperor Julian, Gregory of Nazianzus, and the Vision of Rome (Berkeley, 2012), 324–5.

18 See Julian, Letter to a Priest 295a: ‘That which was created by a wise and good man is capable of being destroyed by a base and stupid man’.

19 OCD 4 s.v. ‘Salmoneus’ and ‘Lycurgus (1)’; Ar. Ran. 991. Salmoneus tried to imitate Zeus by riding in a four-horse chariot in a triumphal fashion, much as Constantius was doing in Ammianus’ account—see Verg. Aen. 6.585–94. It is possible that Ammianus knew this passage of Libanius, although the resemblances between the texts are not close enough to suggest a direct influence.

20 On this massacre, see Burgess, R.W., ‘The summer of blood: the “great massacre” of 337 and the promotion of the sons of Constantine’, DOP 62 (2008), 5–51 Google Scholar (repr. in R.W. Burgess, Chronicles, Consuls, and Coins: Historiography and History in the Later Roman Empire [Farnham, 2011], ch. 10).

21 R. Flower, Emperors and Bishops in Late Roman Invective (Cambridge, 2013), 84–5.

22 Lucifer of Cagliari, Moriundum esse pro Dei Filio 5.30–1 (ed. G.F. Diercks, 1978): et te esse hominem censes, cum nihil hominis nisi liniamenta ac summam figuram geras?

23 Lact. Div. Inst. 5.11.3: sibi adeo placent, quod homines nati sint, quorum nihil nisi lineamenta et summam figuram gerunt. On Lucifer's numerous uses of Lactantius’ Divine Institutes in this text, see U. Pizzani, ‘Presenze lattanziane nel Moriundum esse pro Dei filio di Lucifero di Cagliari’, in S. Laconi (ed.), La figura e l'opera di Lucifero di Cagliari: una rivisitazione. Atti del I Convegno Internazionale, Cagliari, 5–7 dicembre 1996 (Rome, 2001), 223–52; Flower (n. 21), 115–17, 163–76.

24 Ambrosiaster, Quaestiones Veteris et Novi Testamenti 71.1.

25 Ambrosiaster, In Epistolam B. Pauli ad Colossenses 2.17.3. For discussion of both passages, see S. Lunn-Rockliffe, Ambrosiaster's Political Theology (Oxford, 2007), 45–6.

26 This part of Ammianus’ description is usually taken to be a reference to Xen. Cyr. 8.1.42, which states that Cyrus told his close courtiers not to spit, wipe their noses or turn to look at things when they appeared in public. The link with this passage was made in Straub (n. 4), 184 and Charlesworth (n. 9), forming part of their arguments that such behaviour came to the Roman empire from Persia, and it has appeared frequently ever since—see Classen (n. 10); Matthews (n. 2), 233; Dufraigne (n. 3), 191. This description of Constantius’ public behaviour appears again in the positive section of Ammianus’ necrology for Constantius at 21.16.7. For a contrary image of an emperor moving his eyes around too much in a procession and so being regarded as looking like a tyrant, see Olympiodorus’ description of the early-fifth-century magister militum, consul and (short-lived) emperor, Constantius III—Olymp. fr. 23 (ed. R.C. Blockley, 1983).

27 J.C. Rolfe (ed. and trans.), Ammianus Marcellinus, 3 vols. (London, 1935–40), 1.243–4 and Barnes (n. 2), 179 identify the figures as Julius Caesar, Claudius Gothicus and Galerius. de Jonge (n. 5), 113 confuses the Republican Decii, who practised deuotio in battle, with the third-century emperor Decius and his sons, Herennius and Hostilianus.

28 Tac. Ann. 16.4: cunctis citharae legibus obtemperans, ne fessus resideret, ne sudorem nisi ea, quam indutui gerebat, ueste detergeret, ut nulla oris aut narium excrementa uiserentur. See MacMullen (n. 10), 439; Classen (n. 10), 181; Matthews (n. 2), 514 n. 3. See Barnes (n. 2), 191–2 for discussion of stylistic differences between the relevant passages in Tacitus and Ammianus.

29 The description of Nero as scaenicus—an ‘actor’, ‘player’ or ‘pretender’—appears in Tac. Ann. 15.59 and Plin. Pan. 46.4. On theatricality and Nero as actor, see S. Bartsch, Actors in the Audience: Theatricality and Doublespeak from Nero to Hadrian (Cambridge, MA, 1994), 1–62, as well as C. Edwards, ‘Beware of imitations: theatre and the subversion of imperial identity’, in J. Elsner and J. Masters (edd.), Reflections of Nero: Culture, History and Representation (London, 1994), 83–97, which concludes (93) that Caesar was ‘the only role Nero could not play’. On the themes of acting and pretence in Tacitus more generally, see Boesche, R., ‘The politics of pretence: Tacitus and the political theory of despotism’, History of Political Thought 8 (1987), 189–210 Google Scholar, at 207–9; A.J. Woodman, ‘Amateur dramatics at the court of Nero: Annals 15.48–74’, in T.J. Luce and A.J. Woodman (edd.), Tacitus and the Tacitean Tradition (Princeton, 1993), 104–28.

30 J. Fontaine, ‘Valeurs de vie et formes esthétiques dans l’histoire d'Ammien Marcellin’, in C. Giuffrida and M. Mazza (edd.), Le trasformazioni della cultura nella tarda antichità: atti del convegno tenuto a Catania, Università degli Studi, 27 sett. – 2 ott. 1982, 2 vols. (Rome, 1985), 2.781–808, at 796. See Amm. 27.11. On Petronius Probus, see PLRE 1.736–40 (Probus 5).

31 Amm. 21.16.1.

32 Amm. 27.11.2; 20.1.2. See also n. 42 below. See J. den Boeft, D. den Hengst and H.C. Teitler, Philological and Historical Commentary on Ammianus Marcellinus XXI (Groningen, 1991), 243 for the argument that, while these other passages denote people acting with superbia because they present themselves as above their station, the description of Constantius at 21.16.1 shows him behaving as one would expect from an emperor at this time.

33 Matthews (n. 2), 237. See also MacMullen (n. 10), 451.

34 M.-A. Marié, Ammien Marcellin: Histoire, Tome V (Livres XXVI-XXVIII) (Paris, 1984), 219–20 n. 76.

35 See also Amm. 26.6.18 on Procopius’ inability to speak well when he addressed the people from the tribunal during his accession, although in a later episode, at 26.7.16–17, he is depicted as winning soldiers over to his side through his well-chosen words. On the contrast between the two passages, see J. den Boeft, J.W. Drijvers, D. den Hengst and H.C. Teitler, Philological and Historical Commentary on Ammianus Marcellinus XXVI (Leiden, 2008), 210.

36 OLD 2 s.v. 1, 2; TLL 6.1.708.84–710.12.

37 Amm. 15.5.5, 15.5.25, 28.4.12, 29.6.4, 30.1.22. The other ten passages are 14.6.8, 16.10.10, 17.4.6, 19.1.3, 19.1.10, 19.12.10, 22.9.7, 22.13.3, 22.16.12, 23.6.24.

38 For the story of Silvanus, see Amm. 15.5; C. Kelly, ‘Later Roman bureaucracy: going through the files’, in A.K. Bowman and G. Woolf (edd.), Literacy and Power in the Ancient World (Cambridge, 1994), 161–76, at 168–9. On Silvanus, see PLRE 1.840–1 (Silvanus 2).

39 Amm. 15.5.5, 15.5.25. On Dynamius, see PLRE 1.275 (Dynamius 2). For the career of Ursicinus, see PLRE 1.985–6 (Ursicinus 2).

40 Amm. 14.6. On Orfitus, see PLRE 1.651–3 (Orfitus 3).

41 Amm. 28.4.7, 18, 21, 23.

42 Amm. 28.4.27. On allusions to acting and theatrical characters in this passage and Ammianus’ earlier criticism of fourth-century Romans, see Kelly (n. 2), 265. The term for being dressed like an actor in a tragedy is coturnatos, which means wearing the coturnus (or cothurnus), the boot of the tragic actor. On this term elsewhere in Ammianus, see n. 32 above.

43 In contrast, see Alan Cameron, ‘Biondo's Ammianus: Constantius and Hormisdas at Rome’, HSPh 92 (1989), 423–36, who regards 16.10 as laudatory about the city's current inhabitants, stating (at 429) that ‘both senate and people of Rome are presented more positively in this chapter than almost anywhere else in Ammianus’. This term effigies here could be interpreted as a reference to actual statues of senators, but this seems unlikely, as this phrase falls within a section where Constantius is surveying people who have come out of the city to meet him, looking first at the Senate and then at the urban plebs. He has not yet arrived in the city itself, where one would expect to find senatorial statues. The word stirps provides the sense of a ‘family’ or ‘stock’ from which the effigies have sprung (as in the phrase homo patriciae stirpis at Amm. 28.1.52; see also OLD 2 s.v. 4). For the use of effigies to denote offspring who are ‘copies’ or ‘images’ of their parents or ancestors, see OLD 2 s.v. 2. This reading can also be found at Blockley (n. 4), 31; Dufraigne (n. 3), 187–8. The ambiguity of the phrase adds to the sense of unreality in this passage.

44 On the armour of the cavalry in this period, see also Julian, Or. 1.37b–8a; de Jonge (n. 5), 119. At 1.37c, Julian remarks that the cavalrymen sit on their horses καθάπερ ἀνδριάντας.

45 A number of masked cavalry helmets survive, including the Ribchester and Crosby Garrett examples.

46 OLD 2 s.v. 1b; TLL 10.1.1732.14–56. See, for example, Sen. Ep. 80.8; Mart. 11.2.3; Apul. Met. 8.9, 10.5.

47 Sabbah (n. 5), 570–1.

48 Amm. 16.10.10: nam et corpus perhumile curuabat portas ingrediens celsas.

49 Blockley (n. 4), 33.

50 Claud. de IV cos. Hon. 565–76. This passage is used to corroborate the reading of Ammianus’ description of Constantius’ aduentus as faithful at Straub (n. 4), 186 and MacCormack (n. 10), 737–8.

51 Sabbah (n. 5), 572. See also Roberts (n. 5), 184: ‘Constantius is made to seem like a self-important stager of extravagant spectacles rather than the superhuman embodiment of imperial magnificence’.

52 For Ammianus’ general presentation of Constantius as a bad emperor, see, for example, the statement at Amm. 21.16.8 that he was more savage than Caligula, Domitian and Commodus.

53 See, for example, Straub (n. 4), 187–9; MacCormack (n. 10), 736–7 n. 96; id. (n. 3), 42; Sabbah (n. 5), 570; Klein (n. 5), 105–6; Cameron (n. 43), 428; Dufraigne (n. 3), 190–2; Kelly (n. 10), 148; Kelly (n. 3), 598–9.

54 Sabbah (n. 5), 570–1.

55 Dufraigne (n. 3), 187–94; Kelly (n. 3), 599. See also Straub (n. 4), 189; Klein (n. 5), 106; Cameron (n. 43), 433.

56 See Humphries (n. 11), 27–8, which also notes Ammianus’ omission of fourth-century Christian buildings from his description of Rome.

57 Amm. 28.4.30–1.

58 Amm. 16.10.13: laetitia fruebatur optata.

59 Amm. 16.10.15: haerebat attonitus.

60 As Kelly (n. 2), 262–3 has noted, this stands in stark contrast to Julian, whom Ammianus soon presents as much more successful in actually acting like Trajan, firstly in winning a major military victory at Strasbourg and then in rebuilding a Trajanic fort—see Amm. 16.12, 17.1.11.

61 Amm. 16.10.16. Scholarly opinion is divided on whether stabulum refers to the Forum, the city or the Roman Empire itself. Cameron (n. 43), 429–32 argues for the Forum. Kelly (n. 3), 600–1 sees it as a reference to Rome, with the implication that Constantius is enlarging Constantinople and making it into a new Rome. Edbrooke, R.O., ‘Constantius II and Hormisdas in the Forum of Trajan’, Mnemosyne 28 (1975), 412–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 415, and Blockley (n. 4), 36–7 both take this to be a comment on Constantius’ failure to create an empire as great as Trajan's. Sabbah (n. 5), 331–2 reads this remark as a comment on Theodosius I's attempt to rival Trajan with his new forum at Constantinople. On the interpretation of this passage, see also Dufraigne (n. 3), 193.

62 Amm. 16.10.17. In fact, an equestrian statue of Constantius had already been erected near the Senate House a few years earlier—see CIL 6.1158; Humphries (n. 11), 36.

63 Ammianus also states (at 15.1.3) that Constantius claimed to model his behaviour on earlier ciuiles principes—on this passage, see Matthews (n. 2), 235; Kelly (n. 10), 150.