Written by Julia Schulz

Biography

Ammianus Marcellinus was a Roman historian born ca. 330 CE. He was of Greek descent but lived in Rome since 379 CE. Altogether, he wrote 31 historic books called Res Gestae (see fig. 1) or History¹ of which only 18, the books XIV-XXI, survived until today.² He covers the period from the death of Nerva (98 CE) until the death of Valens (378 CE). Choosing the death of Nerva as a starting point for his chronicles places Ammianus in the tradition of Tacitus.³

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His Account of Syene

Ammanius Marcellinus mentions Syene in book XXII of his Histories, where he describes the phenomenon that no upright bodies cast shadows at the solstice:

“Then comes Syene, where at the solstice, to which the sun extends its summer course, its rays surround all upright bodies and do not allow their shadows to extend beyond the bodies themselves. At that time if one fixes a stake upright in the earth, or looks at a man or a tree standing anywhere, he will observe that the shadows are lost in the outer circumference of the figures. The same thing is said to happen at Meroe, a part of Aethiopia lying next to the equinoctial circle, where for ninety days the shadows fall on the side opposite to ours, for which reason those who dwell there are called Antiscii.⁴”⁵

This has also been observed and described by other scholars like Strabo⁶. The reason for this natural phenomenon was Syene’s geographical location at the Northern Tropic.

Sources

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