ABSTRACT
In AD 357, the emperor Constantius II viewed the city of Rome for the first time. The historian Ammianus Marcellinus records that, upon standing in the Forum, the emperor could not contain his amazement at what he saw; he was ‘dazzled by the concentration of wonderful sights’ (16. 10. 15). Ammianus, like many others, considered the city of Rome to be the most impressive city of the empire, the sum of all the provinces.
