The Later Roman Empire

Ammianus Marcellinus’s history is a major source for the Roman Empire in the mid-to-late fourth century. The surviving books cover Constantius II, Julian’s rise and Persian campaign, court politics, frontier warfare, the disaster at Adrianople’s approach and the reigns of Valentinian and Valens. It is useful for places, campaigns and administrative detail in the later empire, especially where a reader wants a soldier-historian’s account of military and imperial crisis.