After focusing on the characterisation of imperial figures, and more particularly Emperor Julian, in Ammianus Marcellinus' Res Gestae for my undergraduate thesis at Colgate University, my research at Oxford seeks to take a deeper dive into the position of Ammianus Marcellinus within the historiographical and biographical traditions of ancient literature, and on Emperor Julian as a historical figure and an author.
I am particularly keen to explore how Ammianus, a pagan historian, contends with the palpable decline of his own beliefs and the rise of Christianity, and how the divisive figure of Julian, the final pagan emperor of Rome, factors into his perspective. I am also interested in Suetonius' De Vita Caesarum, the Historia Augusta, and Roman Imperial biography more broadly.
