Abstract
Ammianus Marcellinus' Res gestae is the most important surviving history of the Later Roman empire. This chapter discusses a different approach to understanding the 'failings of the narrative'. It discusses an analysis of the account of how Ammianus observed from a mountain in Corduene the invading Persian army. The narrator's authority is put under heavy pressure because the text is constructed in such a way that most readers find it difficult to believe these claims to autopsy. Ammianus was an eyewitness, but what he pretends to have seen belongs to the world of the adynata . Finally, in the Craugasius episode, the historical text is generically undermined. An intertext with the novel, the genre of lies, subverts the historical text, the discourse of truth. The conclusion situates Ammianus' literary technique in the social context in which it was produced. Keywords: adynata ; Ammianus Marcellinus; Craugasius episode; Persian army; Res gestae ; Roman empire
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