"... an accurate and faithful guide, who has composed the history of his own times without indulging the prejudices and passions which usually affect the mind of a contemporary."
The Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus was actually born into the Greek speaking elite of Antioch. He wrote his 'History' (in Latin) after retirement from a high level military career. The work originally spanned the period from 96 (picking up from where the last major Latin history, by Tacitus, left off) to 378; in thirty-one books, of which books fourteen to thirty-one survive. Perhaps surprisingly, the surviving eighteen books only cover the years 354-378; recording events which Ammianus himself lived through, or, indeed, was involved in. Although he was a pagan, Ammianus' references to Christianity are notably unbiased. Edward Gibbon ('Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire', published 1776-88) describes Ammianus as: