Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae, John C. Rolfe (Translator), 26.6.15

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[15] So there he stood rather wasted (you would think that he had come up from the lower world), and because a purple robe could nowhere be found, he was dressed in a gold-embroidered tunic, like an attendant at court, but from foot to waist he looked like a page in the service of the palace¹ ; he wore purple shoes on his feet, and bore a lance, and a small piece of purple cloth in his left hand; just as sometimes on the stage you might think that a splendidly decorated figure was suddenly made to appear as the curtain was raised, or through some mimic deception.²

Res Gestae. Ammianus Marcellinus. John C. Rolfe (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1935-1940.

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Funding provided by Tufts University.

Current edition Perseus

History (English) (Ammianus Marcellinus. Ammianus Marcellinus, with an English translation, Vols. I-III. Rolfe, John C., translator. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; W. Heinemann, 1935-1940 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Res Gestae Perseus (Ammianus Marcellinus. Ammianus Marcellinus, with an English translation, Vols. I-III. Rolfe, John C., editor. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; W. Heinemann, 1935-1940 (printing).) — 26.6.15 focus

[15] Stetit itaque subtabidus—excitum putares ab inferis,—nusquam reperto paludamento, tunica auro distincta, ut regius minister, indutus, a calce in pubem, in paedagogiani pueri speciem, purpureis opertus tegminibus pedum, hastatusque purpureum itidem pannulum laeva manu gestabat, ut in theatrali scaena simulacrum quoddam insigne per aulaeum vel mimicam cavillationem subito putares emersum.

Notes on the current edition

History

1. The paedagogium was the apartment where pages or slaves were trained for service; cf. Pliny, Epist. vii. 27, 13, and xxix. 3, 3, below.

2. The language is far from clear, but the general meaning is that he resembled some grotesque actor in a stage-play or mime; Salvète (see Bibliogr. Note, vol. i.) seems to take it to be a figure painted on the curtain. In that case through the curtain would mean by the curtain, as it was raised at the end of a performance; cf. Virg., Georg. iii. 24 f.,

vel scaena ut versis discedat frontibus utque purpureas intexti tollant aulaea Britanni.

The curtain as it rises shows the figure a part at a time and the representation in a mime would be grotesque; Ammianus seems to have combined the two ideas. It is hard to see how per aulaeum can mean behind the curtain, as Büchele takes it, or that a figure on the stage could be seen through the curtain. Yonge omits per aulaeum altogether.

Ammianus Marcellinus Res Gestae 26.6.15

John C. Rolfe (Translator)

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