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with Greek, and the absence of the historical infinitive, a construction peculiar to Latin that might have been particularly difficult for a Greek-speaker to use comfortably (den Boeft 1992). Ammianus’ choices of accentual clausulae , the rhythmic endings to phrases and sentences, are especially striking. Stephen Oberhelman studied 104 prose works written between AD 200 and 450 and found that Ammianus’ use of clausulae was a unique blend of a Greek rhythmical system refined by the appropriation of certain features common to republican historians like Sallust and Livy (Oberhelman 1987). Other “Grecisms” in Ammianus’ style are discussed by Barnes (1998: 65–71).
    One aspect of the Res Gestae that seems more in keeping with the Greek historiographical tradition than the Latin is Ammianus’ extensive use of formal digressions. Ammianus is unmatched by any historian, save Herodotus, in the percentage of his work that is digressive, and in the sheer variety of the subject matter in his digressions (the exact number of digressions is variously enumerated by Cichocka 1975; Emmett 1981; Barnes 1998: 222–4). Ammianus provides a wide sweep of geographical, ethnographical, scientific, philosophical, and religious information. Many of Ammianus’ digressions appear in the section of the work dedicated to Julian, where their presence serves a narrative function, both in enlarging the proportion of the history in which Julian is the central character and, in the case of digressions like those on Gaul and Persia, in emphasizing the vastness and importance of the lands he set out to conquer.
    In his geographic digressions, Ammianus provides information derived both from written sources and from personal observation, as the digression on Gaul indicates. In a discussion of the origin of theGauls, Ammianus credits Timagenes (15.9.2) for his information, and he also cites Sallust as a source for Caesar’s campaigns in Gaul (15.12.6) as well as alluding to Caesar’s Bellum Gallicum in a reference to the original “tripartite” division of Gaul (15.11.1). Yet he also mentions that Aventicum was an important city at one time “as its partially destroyed buildings even now demonstrate” (15.11.12), and his references to the character of the Gauls have sometimes been thought to rely upon personal observation. “A group of foreigners will be unable to contain one of them in a fight if he calls his wife in, as she is much stronger than him,” he claims, adding that Gallic women will kick and punch like a catapult (15.12.1). In addition to Gaul and Persia, Ammianus provides extensive geographic information on Thrace, Oriens, the Black Sea, and Egypt.
    Ammianus is the only ancient historian to offer extensive digressions on scientific matters (den Hengst 1992). These digressions include information on earthquakes, tidal waves, plagues, eclipses, the rainbow, meteors, comets, and the bissextile day. Den Hengst is surely correct in including in the scientific category the “religious” digressions, such as those on divination and on the genius , as these are also explanations of the natural world as Ammianus understood it. Scientific digressions, like geographic digressions, often serve a narrative purpose. Ammianus describes ominous natural phenomena, such as eclipses and comets, which occur at significant points in the action, and his digressions force the reader to stop and to reflect upon these turning points. An egregious example is the digression on eclipses, inspired by an eclipse which Ammianus suggests foreshadowed the elevation of Julian to the rank of Augustus. The historian uses the digression to put the celestial mark of approval upon Julian’s elevation, an approval so desperately desired that, it appears, Ammianus simply invented an eclipse which did not really take place (20.3; Barnes 1998: 102–6).
    Digressions in Ammianus may also have a moralizing purpose. There are many ethnographic digressions, including