Illyrians at Constantinople

Abstract In the preface to his chronicle Marcellinus makes clear to his audience that his preoccupation is chiefly with the eastern empire—Orientale tantum imperium. So we might reasonably expect to find little in the chronicle pertaining to affairs in the western empire, and then only in so far as such affairs affected Constantinople and the East. For Marcellinus the perspective and nomen clature of the Chronicle clearly divide East and West. There is a geographical east (Oriens: 418. 3, 420. 2, 484. 1, 529) and west (Occidens: 416. 1,468), as well as an imperial east (Orientale imperium: Praef.; Orientate respublica: 379. 1) and west (Occidentalis respublica: 434, 454. 2; Occidentalie imperium: 392. 1; Occidentale regnum: 424. 3; Hesperium regnum: 454. 2; Hesperium imperium: 476. 2; principatum Occidentis: 465. 2). There are also designated eastern emperors (Orientalibus principibus: 379. 1) and consuls (Orientalium consulum: 521). Not once after 395 does he refer to the Roman empire as a whole but only to its separate halves. However, on the occasions when he identifies himself as specifically Roman it is clearly as a citizen of the Roman empire as a whole, not just the eastern part of it. In speaking of ‘us’ (447. 2), ‘our generals’ (503), ‘this expedition of ours’ (529) and ‘our emperor’ (532, 533) he identifies him self as a citizen of the Roman world as distinguished from its foes,the Huns (447) and Persians (503, 529).’