Ammianus Marcellinus | T. E. J. Wiedemann (essay date 1986)
T. E. J. Wiedemann (essay date 1986)
SOURCE: Wiedemann, T. E. J. “Between Men and Beasts: Barbarians in Ammianus Marcellinus.” In Past Perspectives: Studies in Greek and Roman Historical Writing, edited by I. S. Moxon, J. D. Smart, and A. J. Woodman, pp. 189-201. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
[In the following essay, Wiedemann explores Ammianus's use of animal metaphors in describing individuals and groups of people.]
Dietary practices are among the more obvious ways in which one group of people can differentiate itself from another. What I eat and drink is normal and natural. A person who does not eat or drink what I do is peculiar: in structuralist jargon, I am central and he is marginal. He may be marginal geographically—simply foreign—or morally: a saint/hero (between man and god) or a sinner/heretic/revolutionary (between man and beast).1 The ultimate dietary rule is the ban on eating the flesh...
[The entire page is 6261 words long]
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