Pagan Historians Of Late Antiquity And Their Controversy On The Battle Of Naissus

What scholars called "Late Antiquity" is not a simple concept of time such as "Middle Ages", "Late Classical Period" and "the late Roman Empire" but a new research paradigm based on politics, religion, cultural transformation and geography. It stems but differentiates from the traditional paradigm of "the fall of the Roman Empire" and "the transformation of the late Roman Empire". The geographical range of the late antiquity contains the Mediterranean region and the Middle East which are influenced by classical cultures. Due to its features, the late antiquity is a transitional period.During the late antiquity, many special historians emerged who lived in the Roman Empire but called themselves "pagans" and are deeply influenced by classical cultures. They recorded the history from the Creation to their current ages in Greek. They inherited traditional historiography of classical historians such as Herodotus and Thucydides, and selected historical materials by prophetic methods to draw parallels from the history. They own the features of classical period and shouldered the responsibility of criticizing Christian Historiography. They are the bridge combining two broken period and two different historiography whose works, historical thought, and historiography are of great significance. Different from many English theses, my paper will translate "pagan historians" into the Chinese meaning "non-Christian historians" and will discuss the characters of pagan historians through the enumeration of works of Ammianus, Dexippus, Zosimus and Zonaras.The battle of Naissus broke out in A.D.269 and many pagan historians had controversy on it. My thesis will use the battle as an entry point to discuss the historiography of pagan historians.