Excursus, etnografía y geografía: un breve recorrido por la tradición historiográfica antigua (de Heródoto a Amiano Marcelino)

the ethnographical and geographical digressions of ammianus marcellinus' res gestae are examined in this paper. this writer, who was heir to a long historiographical tradition going back to herodotus, belongs also to the ethnographical and geographical tradition that originated in the greek periplus accounts. this literary genre was then systematically consolidated in hellenistic times, whence the roman historiography drew a lot of inspiration. ammianus marcellinus use of all those informations will be accounted for as a probable synthesis of historical, literary and scientific traditions.