Nur erzählte Geschichte? Untersuchungen zur Darstellungsweise und zur Glaubwürdigkeit des Ammianus Marcellinus (Amm. 16,10; 20,4-5)

The present Ph.D. deals with two chapters taken from the Res gestae by the Greek historiographer Ammianus Marcellinus written during the last decades of the fourth century A.D. - Emperor Constantius´II. visit of Rome in 357 A.D. (Amm. 16,10) and Julian's elevation as Augustus in Paris in 360 A.D. (Amm. 20,4-5). The way of analysis consists of two steps: a philological-historical comment and an interpretation; this approach is based on the principle that may be taken for granted in all ancient historiography that each historian will not only strive for telling only the truth but also for perfection in his presentation. This principle in combination with the fact that for the first chosen story almost no other sources except Ammian's exist and with respect to the second story he differs largely from other sources shows that the possibilities of variation have been much larger for ancient historians than has commonly been assumed. In addition, for many of the details given in Ammian's stories the inventio of the historiographer must be taken into account. With respect to chapter 16,10 dealing with Constantius' visit of Rome, which has been interpreted as a whole for the first time here and which seems to be told by an eyewitness, this means that the presentation is a very intricate literary construction by Ammian. In this way of telling, Ammian creates a new reality. The adjective intricate is justly applied here because it is not possible - as has been achieved in some cases - to identify in Ammian's description immanent contradictions or breaks that are caused by a change of source. Furthermore, this results in the fact that some of the theses (Constantius first Byzantine emperor, real stupor of Constantius, Constantius restricted by strict ceremonious protocol, basic difference between principatus and dominatus) which are generally proved with the help of this chapter may justly be doubted. The second chapter may be approached in a similar way: Caesar Julian's rebelling soldiers force him to let himself be raised as Augustus. Julian opposes the act out of loyalty for the reigning Augustus Constantius II.. The whole cere-mony is presented as improvised and completely untraditional. A comparison with other reports (Julian's letter to the Athenians, the speeches of Libanius, the Epitaphios) shows that Ammian by constantly dramatising the presentation of the events and by inserting his own interpretation into the narrative (the soldiers as creators of the Emperor) creates a reality that is hardly true (inventio of the historian). But Ammian's way of presenting the facts is so compelling and conclusive that the two questions most interesting to modern historical science - whether Julian's case is one of usurpation or not and whether Julian was the driving force behind the eleva-tion -, may only be decided against Ammian, if - for example - we assume that at the time there was a crite-rion for distinguishing between a princeps/imperator legitimus and a usurpator during the act of elevation