Le grand mur de Gorgan, appele aussi mur d’Alexandre ou mur de Feroz, est une vaste structure defensive de pres de 200 km de long, entre la Mer caspienne et la chaine de l’Elbrouz. La date de sa construction est controversee, et elle varie selon les auteurs sur une plage chronologique allant de la conquete macedonienne a la conquete islamique. Le projet porte par l’universite d’Edimbourg, l’Iranian Cultural Heritage et l’organisation du tourisme du Golestan consistait a trancher la question de la datation du Grand mur de Gorgan et du mur de Tammishe en utilisant les methodes modernes de prospection archeologique et de datation absolue. Ces recherches ont revelees l’existence de structure hydrauliques mais surtout, les methodes de datation au radiocarbone et par luminescence stimulee optiquement (OSL) ont permis de cerner avec une grande precision la date de ces monuments. Ils ont ete eriges autour du Ve siecle de notre ere, donc vraisemblablement par l’empereur Sassanide Feroz, pour proteger l’empire des Huns Hephtaliques.

Linear Barriers of Northern Iran: The Great Wall of Gorgan

Ammianus Marcellinus' Res gestae is the most important surviving history of the Later Roman empire. This chapter discusses a different approach to understanding the 'failings of the narrative'. It discusses an analysis of the account of how Ammianus observed from a mountain in Corduene the invading Persian army. The narrator's authority is put under heavy pressure because the text is constructed in such a way that most readers find it difficult to believe these claims to autopsy. Ammianus was an eyewitness, but what he pretends to have seen belongs to the world of the adynata . Finally, in the Craugasius episode, the historical text is generically undermined. An intertext with the novel, the genre of lies, subverts the historical text, the discourse of truth. The conclusion situates Ammianus' literary technique in the social context in which it was produced. Keywords: adynata ; Ammianus Marcellinus; Craugasius episode; Persian army; Res gestae ; Roman empire

7 Unreliable Witness: Failings of the Narrative in Ammianus Marcellinus

Information and Frontiers: Roman Foreign Relations in Late Antiquity

(2004) The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity History: Reviews of New Books: Vol 32, No 4, pp 166-167

The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity

This book addresses a largely untouched historical problem: the fourth to fifth centuries AD witnessed remarkably similar patterns of foreign invasion, conquest, and political fragmentation in Rome and China. Yet while the Western Roman Empire was never reestablished, China was reunified at the end of the sixth century. Following a comparative discussion of earlier historiographical and ethnographic traditions in the classical Greco-Roman and Chinese worlds, the book turns to the late antique/early medieval period, when the Western Roman Empire 'fell' and China was reconstituted as a united empire after centuries of foreign conquest and political division. Analyzing the discourse of ethnic identity in the historical texts of this later period, with original translations by the author, the book explores the extent to which notions of Self and Other, of 'barbarian' and 'civilized', help us understand both the transformation of the Roman world as well as the restoration of a unified imperial China.

Rome, China, and the Barbarians : Ethnographic Traditions and the Transformation of Empires

Ammianus Marcellinus’ information and knowledge of the Sasanian Persians is often criticised for being stereotypical and reliant on traditional tropes and ideas. This is a result of a scholarly focus on the historian’s long Persian digression, which is based predominantly on ethnographic traditions and older writers. When the focus is switched instead to the wider narrative of the Res Gestae the information Ammianus Marcellinus presents of the Persians and their empire is usually accurate and reliable, and can be corroborated by Roman and Sasanian sources. Beyond the digression we can find useful knowledge on the Persian army, kingship, ideology, frontiers and cultural permeability can be found.

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Craig Morley

Papers

Beyond the digression: ammianus marcellinus on the persians