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Emperor Julian succumbed to his wounds on 26 June 363 almost exactly a month after battle of Ctesiphon. In this article I will say something short about place of his death which is very often incorrectly placed to Maranga which is one of those misinformations which sites like Wikipedia helped to spread among general public for years.

From several sources, including the main and most reliable one Ammianus Marcellinus, it is clear that the Romans themselves did not identified the location with Maranga, and it is not surprising why they didn't. The Roman army was several days and miles away from Maranga at the time Julian suffered his mortal wound, and the battle they fought on 26-27 June 363 was clearly not the same battle as the one they had fought at Maranga a few days earlier, notwithstanding the fact that the two clashes in modern times (and partly already in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages) are often mistakenly and unknowingly confused as one and the same battle.

Ammianus Marcellinus himself clearly states that the place where Julianus died was called "Frygium".Other Roman Late Antique and Medieval writers says that the place was called "Asia".However, none of the authors claim with similar explicitness that it was at Maranga.In fact, not even Zosimus, from whom this error probably originated, directly states this. Zosimus mentions the location of Maranga immediately before mentioning Julian's death(which he did in surprising brevity), but it should be remembered that Zosimus' work is primarily a condensed abridgement of other writers' works, probably primarily Eunapius, of which a much more detailed description has unfortunately not survived except for a few fragments. Moreover, Maranga (in Zosimus styled specifically as "Maronsa") is not even the last location before Julianus' injury and death that Zosimus mentions, it is in fact "Tummara" which is sometimes identified in modern times with present-day Samarra.Ammianus Marcellinus probably also mentions Samarra as "Sumer" but in his version of events the Romans passed through it only after Julianus died. Assuming that Zosimus's "Tummara" and Ammianus's "Sumere" are really the very same location and that it really was a place identical with present-day Samarra, the common practice would be to prefer Ammianus's interpretation, which is generally considered from many good reasons more reliable,of course also in terms of the chronology of events, and thus this also excludes Tummara/Samarra as the actual site of Julianus's death, even though it probably occurred nearby those sites,but near a place called actually "Frygium/Asia".

Description

Emperor Julian succumbed to his wounds on 26 June 363 almost exactly a month after battle of Ctesiphon. In this article I will say something short about place of his death which is very often incorrectly placed to Maranga which is one of those misinformations which sites like Wikipedia helped to spread among general public for years.

From several sources, including the main and most reliable one Ammianus Marcellinus, it is clear that the Romans themselves did not identified the location with Maranga, and it is not surprising why they didn't. The Roman army was several days and miles away from Maranga at the time Julian suffered his mortal wound, and the battle they fought on 26-27 June 363 was clearly not the same battle as the one they had fought at Maranga a few days earlier, notwithstanding the fact that the two clashes in modern times (and partly already in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages) are often mistakenly and unknowingly confused as one and the same battle.

Ammianus Marcellinus himself clearly states that the place where Julianus died was called "Frygium".Other Roman Late Antique and Medieval writers says that the place was called "Asia".However, none of the authors claim with similar explicitness that it was at Maranga.In fact, not even Zosimus, from whom this error probably originated, directly states this. Zosimus mentions the location of Maranga immediately before mentioning Julian's death(which he did in surprising brevity), but it should be remembered that Zosimus' work is primarily a condensed abridgement of other writers' works, probably primarily Eunapius, of which a much more detailed description has unfortunately not survived except for a few fragments. Moreover, Maranga (in Zosimus styled specifically as "Maronsa") is not even the last location before Julianus' injury and death that Zosimus mentions, it is in fact "Tummara" which is sometimes identified in modern times with present-day Samarra.Ammianus Marcellinus probably also mentions Samarra as "Sumer" but in his version of events the Romans passed through it only after Julianus died. Assuming that Zosimus's "Tummara" and Ammianus's "Sumere" are really the very same location and that it really was a place identical with present-day Samarra, the common practice would be to prefer Ammianus's interpretation, which is generally considered from many good reasons more reliable,of course also in terms of the chronology of events, and thus this also excludes Tummara/Samarra as the actual site of Julianus's death, even though it probably occurred nearby those sites,but near a place called actually "Frygium/Asia".