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 of...