XXVIII. ARGUMENT
I. Many persons, even senators and women of senatorial family are accused at Rome of poisonings, adultery, and debauchery, and are punished.--II. The Emperor Valentinian fortifies the whole Gallic bank of the Rhine with forts, castles, and towers; the Allemanni slay the Romans who are constructing a fortification on the other side of the Rhine.--The Maratocupreni, who are ravaging Syria, are, by the command of Valens, destroyed with their children and their town.--III. Theodosius restores the cities of Britain which had been laid waste by the barbarians, repairs the fortresses, and recovers the province of the island which is called Valentia.--IV. Concerning the administration of Olybrius and Ampelius as prefects of the city: and concerning the vices of the Roman senate and people.--V. The Saxons, after a time, are circumvented in Gaul by the manoeuvres of the Romans. Valentinian having promised to unite his forces with them, sends the Burgundians to invade Germany; but they, finding themselves tricked and deceived, put all their prisoners to the sword, and return home.--VI. The ravages inflicted in the province of Tripoli, and on the people of Leptis and OEa, by the Asturians, are concealed from Valentinian by the bad faith of the Roman count; and so are not properly avenged.
I.
A.D. 368.
§ 1. While the perfidy of the king was exciting these unexpected troubles in Persia, as we have related above, and while war was reviving in the east, sixteen years and rather more after the death of Nepotianus, Bellona, raging through the eternal city, destroyed everything, proceeding from trifling beginnings to the most lamentable disasters. Would that they could be buried in everlasting silence, lest perhaps similar things may some day be again attempted, which will do more harm by the general example thus set than even by the misery they occasion.
2. And although after a careful consideration of different circumstances, a reasonable fear would restrain me from giving a minute account of the bloody deeds now perpetrated, yet, relying on the moderation of the present age, I will briefly touch upon the things most deserving of record, nor shall I regret giving a concise account of the fears which the events that happened at a former period caused me.
3. In the first Median war, when the Persians had ravaged Asia, they laid siege to Miletus with a vast host, threatening the garrison with torture and death, and at last reduced the citizens to such straits, that they all, being overwhelmed with the magnitude of their distresses, slew their nearest relations, cast all their furniture and movables into the fire, and then threw themselves in rivalry with one another on the common funeral pile of their perishing country.
4. A short time afterwards, Phrynichus made this event the subject of a tragedy which he exhibited on the stage at Athens; and after he had been for a short time listened to with complacency, when amid all its fine language the tragedy became more and more distressing, it was condemned by the indignation of the people, who thought that it was insulting to produce this as the subject of a dramatic poem, and that it had been prompted not by a wish to console, but only to remind them to their own disgrace of the sufferings which that beautiful city had endured without receiving any aid from its founder and parent. For Miletus was a colony of the Athenians, and had been established there among the other Ionian states by Neleus, the son of that Codrus who is said to have devoted himself for his country in the Dorian war.
5. Let us now return to our subject. Maximinus, formerly deputy prefect of Rome, was born in a very obscure rank of life at Sopianæ, a town of Valeria; his father being only a clerk in the president's office, descended from the posterity of those Carpi whom Diocletian removed from their ancient homes and transferred to Pannonia.
6. After a slight study of the liberal sciences, and some small practice at the bar, he was promoted to be governor of Corsica, then of Sardinia, and at last of Tuscany. From hence, as his successor loitered a long while on his road, he proceeded to superintend the supplying of the eternal city with provisions, still retaining the government of the province; and three different considerations rendered him cautious on his first entrance into office, namely:--
7. In the first place, because he bore in mind the prediction of his father, a man pre-eminently skilful in interpreting what was portended by birds from whom auguries were taken, or by the note of such birds as spoke. And he had warned him that though he would rise to supreme authority, he would perish by the axe of the executioner; secondly, because he had fallen in with a Sardinian (whom he himself subsequently put to death by treachery, as report generally affirmed) who was a man skilled in raising up evil spirits, and in gathering presages from ghosts; and as long as that Sardinian lived, he, fearing to be betrayed, was more tractable and mild; lastly, because while he was slowly making his way through inferior appointments, like a serpent that glides underground, he was not yet of power sufficient to perpetrate any extensive destruction or executions.
8. But the origin of his arriving at more extensive power lay in the following transaction: Chilo, who had been deputy, and his wife, named Maxima, complained to Olybrius, at that time prefect of the city, asserting that their lives had been attacked by poison, and with such earnestness that the men whom they suspected were at once arrested and thrown into prison. These were Sericus, a musician, Asbolius, a wrestling master, and Campensis, a soothsayer.
9. But as the affair began to cool on account of the long-continued violence of some illness with which Olybrius was attacked, the persons who had laid the complaint, becoming impatient of delay, presented a petition in which they asked to have the investigation of their charge referred to the superintendent of the corn-market; and, from a desire for a speedy decision, this request was granted.
10. Now, therefore, that he had an opportunity of doing injury, Maximin displayed the innate ferocity which was implanted in his cruel heart, just as wild beasts exhibited in the amphitheatre often do when at length released from their cages. And, as this affair was represented first in various ways, as if in a kind of prelude, and some persons with their sides lacerated named certain nobles, as if by means of their clients and other low-born persons known as criminals and informers, they had employed various artifices for injuring them. This infernal delegate, carrying his investigations to an extravagant length, presented a malicious report to the emperor, in which he told him that such atrocious crimes as many people had committed at Rome could not be investigated nor punished without the severest penalties.
11. When the emperor learnt this he was exasperated beyond measure, being rather a furious than a rigorous enemy to vice; and accordingly, by one single edict applying to causes of this kind, which in his arrogance he treated as if they partook of treason, he commanded that all those whom the equity of the ancient law and the judgment of the gods had exempted from examination by torture, should, if the case seemed to require it, be put to the rack.
12. And in order that the authority to be established, by being doubled and raised to greater distinction, might be able to heap up greater calamities, he appointed Maximin proprefect at Rome, and gave him as colleague in the prosecution of these inquiries, which were being prepared for the ruin of many persons, a secretary named Leo, who was afterwards master of the ceremonies. He was by birth a Pannonian, and by occupation originally a brigand, as savage as a wild beast, and insatiable of human blood.
13. The accession of a colleague so much like himself, inflamed the cruel and malignant disposition of Maximin, which was further encouraged by the commission which conferred this dignity on them; so that, flinging himself about in his exultation, he seemed rather to dance than to walk, while he studied to imitate the Brachmans who, according to some accounts, move in the air amid the altars.
14. And now the trumpets of intestine discords sounded, while all men stood amazed at the atrocity of the things which were done. Among which, besides many other cruel and inhuman actions so various and so numerous that it is impossible for me to relate them all, the death of Marinus, the celebrated advocate, was especially remarkable. He was condemned to death on a charge which was not even attempted to be supported by evidence, of having endeavoured by wicked acts to compass a marriage with Hispanilla.
15. And since I think that perhaps some persons may read this history who, after careful investigation, will object to it that such and such a thing was done before another; or again that this or that circumstance has been omitted, I consider that I have inserted enough, because it is not every event which has been brought about by base people that is worth recording; nor, if it were necessary to relate them all, would there be materials for such an account, not even if the public records themselves were examined, when so many atrocious deeds were common, and when this new frenzy was throwing everything into confusion without the slightest restraint; and when what was feared was evidently not a judicial trial but a total cessation of all justice.
16. At this time, Cethegus, a senator, who was accused of adultery, was beheaded, and a young man of noble birth, named Alypius, who had been banished for some trivial misconduct, with some other persons of low descent, were all publicly executed; while every one appeared in their sufferings to see a representation of what they themselves might expect, and dreamt of nothing but tortures, prisons, and dark dungeons.
17. At the same time also, the affair of Hymetius, a man of very eminent character, took place, of which the circumstances were as follows. When he was governing Africa as proconsul, and the Carthaginians were in extreme distress for want of food, he supplied them with corn out of the granaries destined for the Roman people; and shortly afterwards, when there was a fine harvest, he without delay fully replaced what he had thus consumed.
18. But as at the time of the scarcity ten bushels had been sold to those who were in want for a piece of gold, while he now bought thirty for the same sum, he sent the profit derived from the difference in price to the emperor's treasury. Therefore, Valentinian, suspecting that there was not as much sent as there ought to have been as the proceeds of this traffic, confiscated a portion of his property.
19. And to aggravate the severity of this infliction, another circumstance happened about the same time which equally tended to his ruin. Amantius was a soothsayer of pre-eminent celebrity at that period, and having been accused by some secret informer of being employed by this same Hymetius to offer a sacrifice for some evil purpose, he was brought before a court of justice and put to the rack; but in spite of all his tortures, he denied the charge with steadfast resolution.
20. And as he denied it, some secret papers were brought from his house, among which was found a letter in the handwriting of Hymetius, in which he asked Amantius to propitiate the gods by some solemn sacrifices to engage them to make the disposition of the emperor favourable to him; and at the end of the letter were found some reproachful terms applied to the emperor as avaricious and cruel.
21. Valentinian learnt these facts from the report of some informers, who exaggerated the offence given, and with very unnecessary vigour ordered an inquiry to be made into the affair; and because Frontinus, the assessor of Hymetius, was accused of having been the instrument of drawing up this letter, he was scourged with rods till he confessed, and then he was condemned to exile in Britain. But Amantius was subsequently convicted of some capital crimes and was executed.
22. After these transactions, Hymetius was conducted to the town of Otricoli, to be examined by Ampelius, the prefect of the city, and deputy of Maximin; and when he was on the point of being condemned, as was manifest to every one, he judiciously seized an opportunity that was afforded to him of appealing to the protection of the emperor, and being protected by his name, he came off for the time in safety.
23. The emperor, however, when he was consulted on the matter, remitted it to the senate, who examined into the whole affair with justice, and banished him to Boæ, a village in Dalmatia, for which they were visited with the wrath of the emperor, who was exceedingly enraged when he heard that a man whom in his own mind he had condemned to death had been let off with a milder punishment.
24. These and similar transactions led every one to fear that the treatment thus experienced by a few was intended for all: and that these evils should not, by being concealed, grow greater and greater till they reached an intolerable height, the nobles sent a deputation consisting of Prætextatus, formerly a prefect of the city, Venustus, formerly deputy, and Minervius, who had been a consular governor, to entreat the emperor not to allow the punishments to exceed the offences, and not to permit any senator to be exposed to the torture in an unprecedented and unlawful manner.
25. But when these envoys were admitted into the council chamber, Valentinian denied that he had ever given such orders, and insisted that the charges made against him were calumnies. He was, however, refuted with great moderation by the prætor Eupraxius; and in consequence of this freedom, the cruel injunction that had been issued, and which had surpassed all previous examples of cruelty, was amended.
26. About the same time, Lollianus, a youth of tender age, the son of Lampadius, who had been prefect, being accused before Maximin, who investigated his case with great care, and being convicted of having copied out a book on the subject of the unlawful acts (though, as his age made it likely, without any definite plan of using it), was, it seemed, on the point of being sentenced to banishment, when, at the suggestion of his father, he appealed to the emperor; and being by his order brought to court, it appeared that he had, as the proverb has it, gone from the frying-pan into the fire, as he was now handed over to Phalangius, the consular governor of Bætica, and put to death by the hand of the executioner.
27. There were also Tarratius Bassus, who afterwards became prefect of the city, his brother Camenius, a man of the name of Marcian, and Eusapius, all men of great eminence, who were prosecuted on the ground of having protected the charioteer Auchenius, and being his accomplices in the act of poisoning. The evidence was very doubtful, and they were acquitted by the decision of Victorinus, as general report asserted; Victorinus being a most intimate friend of Maximin.
28. Women too were equally exposed to similar treatment. For many of this sex also, and of noble birth, were put to death on being convicted of adultery or unchastity. The most notorious cases were those of Claritas and Flaviana; the first of whom, when conducted to death, was stripped of the clothes which she wore, not even being permitted to retain enough to cover her with bare decency; and for this the executioner also was convicted of having committed a great crime, and burnt to death.
29. Paphius and Cornelius, both senators, confessed that they had polluted themselves by the wicked practice of poisoning, and were put to death by the sentence of Maximin; and by a similar sentence the master of the mint was executed. He also condemned Sericus and Asbolius, who have been mentioned before; and because while exhorting them to name any others who occurred to them, he had promised them with an oath that they should not themselves be punished either by fire or sword, he had them slain by violent blows from balls of lead. After this he also burnt alive Campensis the soothsayer, not having in his case bound himself by any oath or promise.
30. Here it is in my opinion convenient to explain the cause which brought Aginatius headlong to destruction, a man ennobled by a long race of ancestors, as unvarying tradition affirms, though no proof of his ancestral renown was ever substantiated.
31. Maximin, full of pride and arrogance, and being then also prefect of the corn-market, and having many encouragements to audacity, proceeded so far as to show his contempt for Probus, the most illustrious of all the nobles, and who was governing the provinces with the authority of prefect of the prætorium.
32. Aginatius, being indignant at this, and feeling it a hardship that in the trial of causes Olybrius had preferred Maximin to himself, while he was actually deputy at Rome, secretly informed Probus in private letters that the arrogant and foolish man who had thus set himself against his lofty merits, might easily be put down if he thought fit.
33. These letters, as some affirm, Probus sent to Maximin, hardened as he was in wickedness, because he feared his influence with the emperor; letting none but the bearer know the business. And when he had read them, the cruel Maximin became furious, and henceforth set all his engines at work to destroy Aginatius, like a serpent that had been bruised by some one whom it knew.
34. There was another still more powerful cause for intriguing against him, which ultimately became his destruction. For he charged Victorinus, who was dead, and from whom he had received a very considerable legacy, with having while alive made money of the decrees of Maximin; and with similar maliciousness he had also threatened his wife Anepsia with a lawsuit.
35. Anepsia, alarmed at this, and to support herself by the aid of Maximin, pretended that her husband in a will which he had recently made, had left him three thousand pounds weight of silver. He, full of covetousness, for this too was one of his vices, demanded half the inheritance, and afterwards, not being contented with that, as if it were hardly sufficient, he contrived another device which he looked upon as both honourable and safe; and not to lose his hold of the handle thus put in his way for obtaining a large estate, he demanded the daughter of Anepsia, who was the stepdaughter of Victorinus, as a wife for his son; and this marriage was quickly arranged with the consent of the woman.
36. Through these and other atrocities equally lamentable, which threw a gloom over the whole of the eternal city, this man, never to be named without a groan, grew by the ruin of numerous other persons, and began to stretch out his hands beyond the limits of lawsuits and trials: for it is said that he had a small cord always suspended from a remote window of the prætorium, the end of which had a loop which was easily drawn tight, by means of which he received secret informations supported by no evidence or testimony, but capable of being used to the ruin of many innocent persons. And he used often to send his officers, Mucianus and Barbarus, men fit for any deceit or treachery, secretly out of his house.
37. Who then, as if bewailing some hardship which as they pretended had fallen upon them, and exaggerating the cruelty of the judge, with constant repetition assured those who really lay under execution that there was no remedy by which they could save themselves except that of advancing heavy accusation against men of high rank; because if such men were involved in such accusations, they themselves would easily procure an acquittal.
38. In this way, Maximin's implacable temper overwhelmed those yet in his power; numbers were thrown into prison, and persons of the highest rank were seen with anxious faces and in mourning attire. Nor ought any one of them to be blamed for bowing down to the ground in saluting this monster, when they heard him vociferating with the tone of a wild beast, that no one could ever be acquitted unless he choose.
39. For sayings like that, when instantly followed by their natural result, would have terrified even men like Numa, Pompilius, or Cato. In fact things went on in such a way that some persons never had their eyes dried of the tears caused by the misfortunes of others, as often happens in such unsettled and dangerous times.
40. And the iron-hearted judge, continually disregarding all law and justice, had but one thing about him which made him endurable; for sometimes he was prevailed upon by entreaties to spare some one, though this too is affirmed to be nearly a vice in the following passage of Cicero. "If anger be implacable, it is the extreme of severity; if it yield to entreaties, it is the extreme of levity; though in times of misfortune even levity is to be preferred to cruelty."
41. After these events, Leo arrived, and was received as his successor, and Maximin was summoned to the emperor's court and promoted to the office of prefect of the prætorium, where he was as cruel as ever, having indeed greater power of inflicting injury, like a basilisk serpent.
42. Just at this time, or not long before, the brooms with which the senate-house of the nobles was swept out were seen to flower, and this portended that some persons of the very lowest class would be raised to high rank and power.
43. Though it is now time to return to the course of our regular history, yet without neglecting the proper order of time, we must dwell on a few incidents, which through the iniquity of the deputy prefects of the city, were done most unjustly, being in fact done at the word and will of Maximin by those same officers, who seemed to look on themselves as the mere servants of his pleasure.
44. After him came Ursicinus, a man of a more merciful disposition, who, wishing to act cautiously and in conformity to the constitution, confronted a man named Esaias with some others who were in prison on a charge of adultery with Rufina; who had attempted to establish a charge of treason against Marcellus her husband, formerly in a situation of high trust. But this act led to his being despised as a dawdler, and a person little fit to carry out such designs with proper resolution, and so he was removed from his place of deputy.
45. He was succeeded by Simplicius of Emona, who had been a schoolmaster, but was now the assessor of Maximin. After receiving this appointment, he did not grow more proud or arrogant, but assumed a supercilious look, which gave a repulsive expression to his countenance. His language was studiously moderate, while he meditated the most rigorous proceedings against many persons. And first of all he put Rufina to death with all the partners of her adultery, and all who were privy to it, concerning whom Ursicinus, as we have related, had already made a report. Then he put numbers of others to death, without any distinction between the innocent and the guilty.
46. Running a race of bloodshed with Maximin, as if he had, as it were, been his leader, he sought to surpass him in destroying the noblest families, imitating Busiris and Antæus of old, and Phalaris, so that he seemed to want nothing but the bull of Agrigentum.
47. After these and other similar transactions had taken place, a certain matron named Hesychia, who was accused of having attempted some crime, becoming greatly alarmed, and being of a fierce and resolute disposition, killed herself in the house of the officer to whom she was given in custody, by muffling her face in a bed of feathers, and stopping up her nostrils and so becoming suffocated.
48. To all these calamities another of no less severity was added. For Eumenius and Abienus, two men of the highest class, having been accused, during Maximin's term of office, of adultery with Fausiana, a woman of rank, after the death of Victorinus, under whose protection they were safe, being alarmed at the arrival of Simplicius, who was as full of audacity and threats as Maximin, withdrew to some secret hiding place.
49. But after Fausiana had been condemned they were recorded among the accused, and were summoned by public edict to appear, but they only hid themselves the more carefully. And Abrenus was for a very long time concealed in the house of Anepsia. But as it continually happens that unexpected accidents come to aggravate the distresses of those who are already miserable, a slave of Anepsia named Apaudulus, being angry because his wife had been flogged, went by night to Simplicius, and gave information of the whole affair, and officers were sent to drag them both from their place of concealment.
50. The charge against Abrenus was strengthened by another charge which was brought against him, of having seduced Anepsia, and he was condemned to death. But Anepsia herself, to get some hope of saving her life by at least procuring the delay of her execution, affirmed that she had been assailed by unlawful arts, and had been ravished in the house of Aginatius.
51. Simplicius with loud indignation reported to the emperor all that had taken place, and as Maximin, who was now at court, hated Aginatius for the reason which we have already explained, and having his rage increased against him at the same time that his power was augmented, entreated with great urgency that he might be sentenced to death; and such a favour was readily granted to this furious and influential exciter of the emperor's severity.
52. Then fearing the exceeding unpopularity which would fall upon him if a man of patrician family should perish by the sentence of Simplicius, who was his new assessor and friend, he kept the imperial edict for the execution by him for a short time, wavering and doubting whom to pitch upon as a trusty and efficient perpetrator of so atrocious a deed.
53. At length, as like usually finds like, a certain Gaul of the name of Doryphorianus was discovered, a man daring even to madness; and as he promised to accomplish the matter in a short time, he obtained for him the post of deputy, and gave him the emperor's letter with an additional rescript; instructing the man, who though savage had no experience in such matters, how, if he used sufficient speed, he would meet with no obstacle to his slaying Aginatius; though, if there were any delay, he would be very likely to escape.
54. Doryphorianus, as he was commanded, hastened to Rome by rapid journeys; and while beginning to discharge the duties of his new office, he exerted great industry to discover how he could put a senator of eminent family to death without any assistance. And when he learnt that he had been some time before found in his own house where he was still kept in custody, he determined to have him brought before him as the chief of all the criminals, with Anepsia, in the middle of the night; an hour at which men's minds are especially apt to be bewildered by terror; as, among many other instances, the Ajax of Homer[165] shows us, when he expresses a wish rather to die by daylight, than to suffer the additional terrors of the night.
55. And as the judge, I should rather call him the infamous robber, intent only on the service he had promised to perform, carried everything to excess, having ordered Aginatius to be brought in, he also commanded the introduction of a troop of executioners; and while the chains rattled with a mournful sound, he tortured the slaves who were already exhausted by their long confinement, till they died, in order to extract from them matter affecting the life of their master; a proceeding which in a trial for adultery our merciful laws expressly forbids.
56. At last, when the tortures which were all but mortal had wrung some hints from the maid-servant, without any careful examination of the truth of her words, Aginatius was at once sentenced to be led to execution, and without being allowed to say a word in his defence, though with loud outcries he appealed to and invoked the names of the emperors, he was carried off and put to death, and Anepsia was executed by a similar sentence. The eternal city was filled with mourning for these executions which were perpetrated either by Maximin himself when he was present in the city, or by his emissaries when he was at a distance.
57. But the avenging Furies of those who had been murdered were preparing retribution. For, as I will afterwards relate at the proper season, this same Maximin giving way to his intolerable pride when Gratian was emperor, was put to death by the sword of the executioner; and Simplicius also was beheaded in Illyricum. Doryphorianus too was condemned to death, and thrown into the Tullian prison, but was taken from thence by the emperor at his mother's suggestion, and when he was brought back to his own country was put to death with terrible torments. Let us now return to the point at which we left our history. Such, however, was the state of affairs in the city of Rome.
II.
A.D. 369.
§ 1. Valentinian having several great and useful projects in his head, began to fortify the entire banks of the Rhine, from its beginning in the Tyrol to the straits of the ocean,[166] with vast works; raising lofty castles and fortresses, and a perfect range of towers in every suitable place, so as to protect the whole frontier of Gaul; and sometimes, by constructing works on the other side of the river, he almost trenched upon the territories of the enemy.
2. At last considering that one fortress, of which he himself had laid the very foundations, though sufficiently high and safe, yet, being built on the very edge of the river Neckar, was liable to be gradually undermined by the violent beating of its waters, he formed a plan to divert the river itself into another channel; and, having sought out some workmen who were skilful in such works and collected a strong military force, he began that arduous labour.
3. Day after day large masses of oaken beams were fastened together, and thrown into the channel, and by them huge piles were continually fixed and unfixed, being all thrown into disorder by the rising of the stream, and afterwards they were broken and carried away by the current.
4. However, the resolute diligence of the emperor and the labour of the obedient soldiery prevailed; though the troops were often up to their chins in the water while at work; and at last, though not without considerable risk, the fixed camp was protected against all danger from the violence of the current, and is still safe and strong.
5. Joyful and exulting in this success, the emperor, perceiving that the weather and the season of the year did not allow him any other occupation, like a good and active prince began to apply his attention to the general affairs of the republic. And thinking the time very proper for completing one work which he had been meditating, he began with all speed to raise a fortification on the other side of the Rhine, on Mount Piri, a spot which belongs to the barbarians. And as rapidity of action was one great means of executing this design with safety, he sent orders to the Duke Arator, through Syagrius, who was then a secretary, but who afterwards became prefect and consul, to attempt to make himself master of this height in the dead of the night.
6. The duke at once crossed over with the secretary, as he was commanded; and was beginning to employ the soldiers whom he had brought with him to dig out the foundations, when he received a successor, Hermogenes. At the very same moment there arrived some nobles of the Allemanni, fathers of the hostages, whom, in accordance with our treaty, we were detaining as important pledges for the long continuance of the peace.
7. And they, with bended knees entreated him not to let the Romans, with an improvident disregard of all safety (they whose fortune their everlasting good faith had raised to the skies), now be misled by a base error to trample all former agreements under foot, and attempt an act unworthy of them.
8. But since it was to no purpose that they used these and similar arguments, as they were not listened to, and finding that they had no chance of a conciliatory answer, they reluctantly returned, bewailing the loss of their sons; and when they were gone, from a secret hiding-place in a neighbouring hill a troop of barbarians sprang forth, waiting, as far as was understood, for the answer which was to be given to the nobles; and attacking our half-naked soldiers, who were carrying loads of earth, drew their swords and quickly slew them, and with them the two generals.
9. Nor was any one left to relate what had happened, except Syagrius, who, after they were all destroyed returned to the court, where by the sentence of his offended emperor he was dismissed the service; on which he retired to his own home; being judged by the severe decision of the prince to have deserved this sentence because he was the only one who escaped.
10. Meanwhile the wicked fury of bands of robbers raged through Gaul to the injury of many persons; since they occupied the most frequented roads, and without any hesitation seized upon everything valuable which came in their way. Besides many other persons who were the victims of these treacherous attacks, Constantianus, the tribune of the stable, was attacked by a secret ambuscade and slain; he was a relation of Valentinian, and the brother of Cerealis and Justina.
11. In other countries, as if the Furies were stirring up similar evils to afflict us on every side, the Maratocupreni, those most cruel banditti, spread their ravages in every direction. They were the natives of a town of the same name in Syria, near Apamea; very numerous, marvellously skilful in every kind of deceit, and an object of universal fear, because, under the character of merchants or soldiers of high rank, they spread themselves quietly over the country, and then pillaged all the wealthy houses, villages, and towns which came in their way.
12. Nor could any one guard against their unexpected attacks; since they fell not upon any previously selected victim, but in places in various parts, and at great distances, and carried their devastations wherever the wind led them. For which reason the Saxons were feared beyond all other enemies, because of the suddenness of their attacks. They then, in bands of sworn comrades, destroyed the riches of many persons; and being under the impulse of absolute fury, they committed the most mournful slaughters, being not less greedy of blood than of booty. Nevertheless, that I may not, by entering into too minute details, impede the progress of my history, it will be sufficient to relate one destructive device of theirs.
13. A body of these wicked men assembled in one place, pretending to be the retinue of a receiver of the revenue, or of the governor of the province. In the darkness of the evening they entered the city, while the crier made a mournful proclamation, and attacked with swords the house of one of the nobles, as if he had been proscribed and sentenced to death. They seized all his valuable furniture, because his servants, being utterly bewildered by the suddenness of the danger, did not defend the house; they slew several of them, and then before the return of daylight withdrew with great speed.
14. But being loaded with a great quantity of plunder, since from their love of booty they had left nothing behind, they were intercepted by a movement of the emperor's troop, and were cut off and all slain to a man. And their children, who were at the time very young, were also destroyed to prevent their growing up in the likeness of their fathers; and their houses which they had built with great splendour at the expense of the misery of others, were all pulled down. These things happened in the order in which they have been related.
III.
§ 1. But Theodosius, a general of very famous reputation, departed in high spirits from Augusta, which the ancients used to call Londinium, with an army which he had collected with great energy and skill; bringing a mighty aid to the embarrassed and disturbed fortunes of the Britons. His plan was to seek everywhere favourable situations for laying ambuscades for the barbarians; and to impose no duties on his troops of the performance of which he did not himself cheerfully set the example.
2. And in this way, while he performed the duties of a gallant soldier, and showed at the same time the prudence of an illustrious general, he routed and vanquished the various tribes in whom their past security had engendered an insolence which led them to attack the Roman territories; and he entirely restored the cities and the fortresses which through the manifold disasters of the time had been injured or destroyed, though they had been originally founded to secure the tranquillity of the country.
3. But while he was pursuing this career, a great crime was planned which was likely to have resulted in serious danger, if it had not been crushed at the very beginning.
4. A certain man named Valentine, in Valeria of Pannonia, a man of a proud spirit, the brother-in-law of Maximin, that wicked and cruel deputy, who afterwards became prefect, having been banished to Britain for some grave crime, and being a restless and mischievous beast, was eager for any kind of revolution or mischief, began to plot with great insolence against Theodosius, whom he looked upon as the only person with power to resist his wicked enterprise.
5. But while both openly and privily taking many precautions, as his pride and covetousness increased, he began to tamper with the exiles and the soldiers, promising them rewards sufficient to tempt them as far at least as the circumstances and his enterprise would permit.
6. But when the time for putting his attempt into execution drew near, the duke, who had received from some trustworthy quarter information of what was going on, being always a man inclined to a bold line of conduct, and resolutely bent on chastising crimes when detected, seized Valentine with a few of his accomplices who were most deeply implicated, and handed them over to the general Dulcitius to be put to death. But at the same time conjecturing the future, through that knowledge of the soldiers in which he surpassed other men, he forbade the institution of any examination into the conspiracy generally, lest if the fear of such an investigation should affect many, fresh troubles might revive in the province.
7. After this he turned his attention to make many necessary amendments, feeling wholly free from any danger in such attempts, since it was plain that all his enterprises were attended by a propitious fortune. So he restored cities and fortresses, as we have already mentioned, and established stations and outposts on our frontiers; and he so completely recovered the province which had yielded subjection to the enemy, that through his agency it was again brought under the authority of its legitimate ruler, and from that time forth was called Valentia, by desire of the emperor, as a memorial of his success.
8. The Areans, a class of men instituted in former times, and of whom we have already made some mention in recording the acts of Constans, had now gradually fallen into bad practices, for which he removed them from their stations; in fact they had been undeniably convicted of yielding to the temptation of the great rewards which were given and promised to them, so as to have continually betrayed to the barbarians what was done among us. For their business was to traverse vast districts, and report to our generals the warlike movements of the neighbouring nations.
9. In this manner the affairs which I have already mentioned, and others like them, having been settled, he was summoned to the court, and leaving the provinces in a state of exultation, like another Furius Camillus or Papirius Cursor, he was celebrated everywhere for his numerous and important victories. He was accompanied by a large crowd of well-wishers to the coast, and crossing over with a fair wind, arrived at the emperor's camp, where he was received with joy and high praise, and appointed to succeed Valens Jovinus, who was commander of the cavalry.
IV.
§ 1. I have thus made a long and extensive digression from the affairs of the city, being constrained by the abundance of events which took place abroad; and now I will return to give a cursory sketch of them, beginning with the tranquil and moderate exercise of the prefect's authority by Olybrius, who never forgot the rights of humanity, but was continually anxious and careful that no word or deed of his should ever be harsh or cruel. He was a merciless punisher of calumnies; he restrained the exactions of the treasury wherever he could; he was a careful discriminator of right and wrong; an equitable judge, and very gentle towards those placed under his authority.
2. But all these good qualities were clouded by one vice which, though not injurious to the commonwealth, was very discreditable to a judge of high rank; namely, that his private life was one of great luxury, devoted to theatrical exhibitions, and to amours, though not such as were either infamous or incestuous.
3. After him Ampelius succeeded to the government of the city; he also was a man addicted to pleasure, a native of Antioch, and one who from having been master of the offices was twice promoted to a proconsulship, and sometime afterwards to that supreme rank, the prefecture. In other respects he was a cheerful man, and one admirably suited to win the favour of the people; though sometimes over-severe, without being as firm in his purposes as might have been wished. Had he been, he would have corrected, though perhaps not effectually, the gluttonous and debauched habits which prevailed; but, as it was, by his laxity of conduct, he lost a glory which otherwise might have been enduring.
4. For he had determined that no wine-shop should be opened before the fourth hour of the day; and that none of the common people, before a certain fixed hour, should either warm water or expose dressed meat for sale; and that no one of respectable rank should be seen eating in public.
5. Since these unseemly practices, and others still worse, owing to long neglect and connivance, had grown so frequent that even Epimenides of Crete, if, according to the fabulous story, he could have risen from the dead and returned to our times, would have been unable by himself to purify Rome; such deep stains of incurable vices overwhelmed it.
6. And in the first place we will speak of the faults of the nobles, as we have already repeatedly done as far as our space permitted; and then we will proceed to the faults of the common people, touching, however, only briefly and rapidly on either.
7. Some men, conspicuous for the illustriousness of their ancestry as they think, gave themselves immoderate airs, and call themselves Reburri, and Fabunii, and Pagonii, and Geriones, Dalii, Tarracii, or Perrasii, and other finely-sounding appellations, indicating the antiquity of their family.
8. Some also are magnificent in silken robes, as if they were being led to execution, or, to speak without words of so unfavourable an omen, as if after the army had passed they were bringing up the rear, and are followed by a vast troop of servants, with a din like that of a company of soldiers.
9. Such men when, while followed by fifty servants apiece, they have entered the baths, cry out with threatening voice, "Where are my people?" And if they suddenly find out that any unknown female slave has appeared, or any worn-out courtesan who has long been subservient to the pleasures of the townspeople, they run up, as if to win a race, and patting and caressing her with disgusting and unseemly blandishments, they extol her, as the Parthians might praise Semiramis, Egypt her Cleopatra, the Carians Artemisia, or the Palmyrene citizens Zenobia. And men do this, whose ancestor, even though a senator, would have been branded with a mark of infamy because he dared, at an unbecoming time, to kiss his wife in the presence of their common daughter.
10. Some of these, when any one meets and begins to salute them, toss their heads like bulls preparing to butt, offering their flatterers their knees or hands to kiss, thinking that quite enough for their perfect happiness; while they deem it sufficient attention and civility to a stranger who may happen to have laid them under some obligation to ask him what warm or cold bath he frequents, or what house he lives in.
11. And while they are so solemn, looking upon themselves as especial cultivators of virtue, if they learn that any one has brought intelligence that any fine horses or skilful coachmen are coming from any place, they rush with as much haste to see them, examine them, and put questions concerning them, as their ancestors showed on beholding the twin-brothers Tyndaridæ,[167] when they filled the whole city with joy by the announcement of that ancient victory.
12. A number of idle chatterers frequent their houses, and, with various pretended modes of adulation, applaud every word uttered by men of such high fortune; resembling the parasites in a comedy, for as they puff up bragging soldiers, attributing to them, as rivals of the heroes of old, sieges of cities, and battles, and the death of thousands of enemies, so these men admire the construction of the lofty pillars, and the walls inlaid with stones of carefully chosen colours, and extol these grandees with superhuman praises.
13. Sometimes scales are sent for at their entertainments to weigh the fish, or the birds, or the dormice which are set on the table; and then the size of them is dwelt on over and over again, to the great weariness of those present, as something never seen before; especially when near thirty secretaries stand by, with tablets and memorandum books, to record all these circumstances; so that nothing seems to be wanting but a schoolmaster.
14. Some of them, hating learning as they hate poison, read Juvenal and Marius Maximus[168] with tolerably careful study; though, in their profound laziness, they never touch any other volumes; why, it does not belong to my poor judgment to decide.
15. For, in consideration of their great glories and long pedigrees, they ought to read a great variety of books; in which, for instance, they might learn that Socrates, when condemned to death and thrown into prison, asked some one who was playing a song of the Greek poet Stesichorus with great skill, to teach him also to do that, while it was still in his power; and when the musician asked him of what use this skill could be to him, as he was to die the next day, he answered, "that I may know something more before I die."
16. And there are among them some who are such severe judges of offences, that if a slave is too long in bringing them hot water, they will order him to be scourged with three hundred stripes; but should he intentionally have killed a man, while numbers insist that he ought to be unhesitatingly condemned as guilty, his master will exclaim, "What can the poor wretch do? what can one expect from a good-for-nothing fellow like that?" But should any one else venture to do anything of the kind, he would be corrected.
17. Their ideas of civility are such that a stranger had better kill a man's brother than send an excuse to them if he be asked to dinner; for a senator fancies that he has suffered a terrible grievance, equal to the loss of his entire patrimony, if any guest be absent, whom, after repeated deliberations, he has once invited.
18. Some of them, if they have gone any distance to see their estates in the country, or to hunt at a meeting collected for their amusement by others, think they have equalled the marches of Alexander the Great, or of Cæsar; or if they have gone in some painted boats from Lake Avernus to Pozzuoli or Cajeta, especially if they have ventured on such an exploit in warm weather. Where if, amid their golden fans, a fly should perch on the silken fringes, or if a slender ray of the sun should have pierced through a hole in their awning, they complain that they were not born among the Cimmerians.
19. Then, when they come from the bath of Silvanus, or the waters of Mamæa, which are so good for the health, after they come out of the water, and have wiped themselves with cloths of the finest linen, they open the presses, and take out of them robes so delicate as to be transparent, selecting them with care, till they have got enough to clothe eleven persons; and at length, after they have picked out all they choose, they wrap themselves up in them, and take the rings which they had given to their attendants to hold, that they might not be injured by the damp; and then they depart when their fingers are properly cooled.
20. Again, if any one having lately quitted the military service of the emperor, has retired to his home.[169] ...
21. Some of them, though not many, wish to avoid the name of gamblers, and prefer to be called dice-players; the difference being much the same as that between a thief and a robber. But this must be confessed that, while all friendships at Rome are rather cool, those alone which are engendered by dice are sociable and intimate, as if they had been formed amid glorious exertions, and were firmly cemented by exceeding affection; to which it is owing that some of this class of gamblers live in such harmony that you might think them the brothers Quintilii.[170] And so you may sometimes see a man of base extraction, who knows all the secrets of the dice, as grave as Porcius Cato when he met with a repulse which he had never expected nor dreamt of, when a candidate for the prætorship, with affected solemnity and a serious face, because at some grand entertainment or assembly some man of proconsular rank has been preferred to himself.
22. Some lay siege to wealthy men, whether old or young, childless or unmarried, or even with wives and children (for with such an object no distinction is ever regarded by them), seeking by most marvellous tricks to allure them to make their wills; and then if, after observing all the forms of law, they bequeath to these persons what they have to leave, being won over by them to this compliance, they speedily die.[171]
23. Another person, perhaps only in some subordinate office, struts along with his head up, looking with so slight and passing a glance upon those with whom he was previously acquainted, that you might fancy it must be Marcus Marcellus just returned from the capture of Syracuse.
24. Many among them deny the existence of a superior Power in heaven, and yet neither appear in public, nor dine, nor think that they can bathe with any prudence, before they have carefully consulted an almanac, and learnt where (for example) the planet Mercury is, or in what portion of Cancer the moon is as she passes through the heavens.
25. Another man, if he perceives his creditor to be importunate in demanding a debt, flies to a charioteer who is bold enough to venture on any audacious enterprise, and takes care that he shall be harassed with dread of persecution as a poisoner; from which he cannot be released without giving bail and incurring a very heavy expense. One may add to this, that he includes under this head a debtor who is only so through the engagements into which he has entered to avoid a prosecution, as if he were a real debtor, and that he never lets him go till he has obtained the discharge of the debt.
26. On the other side, a wife, who, as the old proverb has it, hammers on the same anvil day and night, to compel her husband to make his will, and then the husband is equally urgent that his wife shall do the same. And men learned in the law are procured on each side, the one in the bedchamber, and his opponent in the dining-room, to draw up counter-documents. And under their employ are placed ambiguous interpreters of the contracts of their victims, who, on the one side, promise with great liberality high offices, and the funerals of wealthy matrons; and from these they proceed to the obsequies of the husbands, giving hints that everything necessary ought to be prepared; and[172] ... as Cicero says, "Nor in the affairs of men do they understand anything good, except what is profitable; and they love those friends most (as they would prefer sheep) from whom they expect to derive the greatest advantage."[173]
27. And when they borrow anything, they are so humble and cringing, you would think you were at a comedy, and seeing Micon or Laches; when they are constrained to repay what they have borrowed, they become so turgid and bombastic that you would take them for those descendants of Hercules, Cresphontes and Temenus. This is enough to say of the senatorial order.
28. And let us come to the idle and lazy common people, among whom some, who have not even got shoes boast of high-sounding names; calling themselves Cimessores, Statarii, Semicupæ, Serapina, or Cicimbricus, or Gluturiorus, Trulla, Lucanicus, Pordaca, or Salsula,[174] with numbers of other similar appellations. These men spend their whole lives in drinking, and gambling, and brothels, and pleasures, and public spectacles; and to them the Circus Maximus is their temple, their home, their public assembly; in fact, their whole hope and desire.[175]
29. And you may see in the forum, and roads, and streets, and places of meeting, knots of people collected, quarrelling violently with one another, and objecting to one another, and splitting themselves into violent parties.
30. Among whom those who have lived long, having influence by reason of their age, their gray hairs and wrinkles, are continually crying out that the republic cannot stand, if in the contest which is about to take place, the skilful charioteer, whom some individual backs, is not foremost in the race, and does not dextrously shave the turning-post with the trace-horses.
31. And when there is so much ruinous carelessness, when the wished-for day of the equestrian games dawns, before the sun has visibly risen, they all rush out with headlong haste, as if with their speed they would outstrip the very chariots which are going to race; while as to the event of the contest they are all torn asunder by opposite wishes, and the greater part of them, through their anxiety, pass sleepless nights.
32. From hence, if you go to some cheap theatre, the actors on the stage are driven off by hisses, if they have not taken the precaution to conciliate the lowest of the people by gifts of money. And if there should be no noise, then, in imitation of the people in the Tauric Chersonese, they raise an outcry that the strangers ought to be expelled (on whose assistance they have always relied for their principal support), using foul and ridiculous expressions; such as are greatly at variance with the pursuits and inclinations of that populace of old, whose many facetious and elegant expressions are recorded by tradition and by history.
33. For these clever gentlemen have now devised a new method of expressing applause, which is, at every spectacle to cry out to those who appear at the end, whether they are couriers, huntsmen, or charioteers--in short, to the whole body of actors, and to the magistrates, whether of great or small importance, and even to nations, "It is to your school that he ought to go." But what he is to learn there no one can explain.
34. Among these men are many chiefly addicted to fattening themselves up by gluttony, who, following the scent of any delicate food, and the shrill voices of the women who, from cockcrow, cry out with a shrill scream, like so many peacocks, and gliding over the ground on tiptoe, get an entrance into the halls, biting their nails while the dishes are getting cool. Others fix their eyes intently on the tainted meat which is being cooked, that you might fancy Democritus, with a number of anatomists, was gazing into the entrails of sacrificed victims, in order to teach posterity how best to relieve internal pains.
35. For the present this is enough to say of the affairs of the city; now let us return to other events which various circumstances brought to pass in the provinces.
V.
§ 1. In the third consulship of the emperors a vast multitude of Saxons burst forth, and having crossed the difficult passage of the ocean, made towards the Roman frontier by rapid marches, having before often battened on the slaughter of our men. The first storm of this invasion fell upon the count Nannenus, who was in command in that district, being a veteran general of great merit and experience.
2. He now engaged in battle with a host which fought as if resolved on death; but when he found that he had lost many of his men, and that he himself, having been wounded, would be unequal to a succession of battles, he sent word to the emperor of what was necessary, and prevailed on him to send Severus, the commander of the infantry, to aid him at this crisis.
3. That general brought with him a sufficient body of troops, and when he arrived in the country he so arrayed his men that he terrified the barbarians, and threw them into such disorder, even before any battle took place, that they did not venture to engage him, but, panic-stricken at the brilliant appearance of the standards and eagles, they implored pardon and peace.
4. The question of granting it to them was long discussed, with variety of opinion, between the Roman commanders; but at last, as it seemed for the advantage of the republic, a truce was granted, and after they had agreed to the conditions proposed, one of which was that they should furnish a number of young men suitable for military service, the Saxons were permitted to withdraw, but without their baggage, and to return to their own country.
5. But when they, being now freed from all fear, were preparing to return, some of our infantry were sent forward, who secretly laid an ambuscade in a certain hidden defile, from which they would easily be able to attack them as they passed. But the matter turned out very differently from what was expected.
6. For some of our men being roused by the noise of the Saxons, sprang from their ambush unseasonably; and being suddenly seen, while they were hastening to establish themselves, the barbarians, with a terrible yell, put them to flight. Presently, however, they halted in a solid body, and being now driven to extremities, were compelled to fight, though their strength was far from great. The slaughter was great, and they would have been all cut off to a man, had not a column of cuirassier cavalry, which had been similarly placed in ambuscade at a place where the road divided, in order there also to attack the barbarians in their passage, been roused by the uproar, and come up suddenly.
7. Then the battle raged more fiercely, and with dauntless breasts the Romans pressed forward on all sides, and with drawn swords hemmed in their enemies, and slew them; nor did any of them ever return home, for not one survived the slaughter. And although an impartial judge will blame the action as treacherous and disgraceful, still if he weighs all the circumstances, he will not regret that a mischievous band of robbers was at length destroyed when such an opportunity presented itself.
8. After these affairs had been consummated thus successfully, Valentinian revolving in his mind a great variety of opinions, was filled with anxious solicitude, considering and contemplating different measures for breaking the pride of the Allemanni and their king Macrianus, who were incessantly and furiously disturbing the republic with their restless movements.
9. For that ferocious nation, though from its earliest origin diminished by various disasters, yet continually revives, so that it might be considered as having been free from attacks for many ages. At last, after the emperor had considered and approved of one plan after another, it was finally determined to excite the Burgundians to attack them, the Burgundians being a warlike people, with an immense population of active youths, and therefore formidable to all their neighbours.
10. And the emperor sent repeated letters to their chiefs by some silent and trustworthy messengers, to urge them to attack the Allemanni at a certain fixed time, and promising that he likewise would cross the Rhine with the Roman legions, and attack their forces when in disorder, and seeking to escape the unexpected attack of the Burgundians.
11. The letters of the emperor were received with joy, for two reasons: first, because for many ages the Burgundians had looked upon themselves as descended from the Romans; and secondly, because they had continual quarrels with the Allemanni about their salt-pits and their borders. So they sent against them some picked battalions, which, before the Roman soldiers could be collected, advanced as far as the banks of the Rhine, and, while the emperor was engaged in the construction of some fortresses, caused the greatest alarm to our people.
12. Therefore, after waiting for some time, Valentinian having failed to come on the appointed day as promised, and finding that none of his engagements were performed, they sent ambassadors to the court, requesting assistance to enable them to return in safety to their own land, and to save them from exposing their rear unprotected to their enemies.
13. But when they perceived that their request was virtually refused by the excuses and pleas for delay with which it was received, they departed from the court in sorrow and indignation; and when the chiefs of the Burgundians received their report, they were very furious, thinking they had been mocked; and so they slew all their prisoners and returned to their native land.
14. Among them their king is called by one general name of "Hendinos," and according to a very ancient custom of theirs, is deposed from his authority if under his government the state meets with any disaster in war; or if the earth fails to produce a good crop; in the same way as the Egyptians are accustomed to attribute calamities of that kind to their rulers. The chief priest among the Burgundians is called "the Sinistus." But he is irremovable and not exposed to any such dangers as the kings.
15. Taking advantage of this favourable opportunity, Theodosius, the commander of the cavalry, passed through the Tyrol and attacked the Allemanni, who, out of fear of the Burgundians, had dispersed into their villages. He slew a great number, and took some prisoners, whom by the emperor's command he sent to Italy, where some fertile districts around the Po were assigned to them, which they still inhabit as tributaries.
VI.
§ 1. Let us now migrate, as it were, to another quarter of the world, and proceed to relate the distresses of Tripoli, a province of Africa; distresses which, in my opinion, even Justice herself must have lamented, and which burst out rapidly like flames. I will now give an account both of them and of their causes.
2. The Asturians are barbarians lying on the frontier of this province, a people always in readiness for rapid invasions, accustomed to live on plunder and bloodshed; and who, after having been quiet for a while, now relapsed into their natural state of disquiet, alleging the following as the serious cause for their movements.
3. One of their countrymen, by name Stachao, while freely traversing our territories, as in time of peace, did some things forbidden by the laws; the most flagrant of his illegal acts being that he endeavoured, by every kind of deceit and intrigue, to betray the province, as was shown by the most undeniable evidence, for which crime he was burnt to death.
4. To avenge his death, the Asturians, claiming him as their clansman, and affirming that he had been unjustly condemned, burst forth from their own territory like so many mad wild beasts during the reign of Jovian, but fearing to approach close to Leptis, which was a city with a numerous population, and fortified by strong walls, they occupied the district around it, which is very fertile, for three days: and having slain the agricultural population on it, whom terror at their sudden inroad had deprived of all spirit, or had driven to take refuge in caves, and burnt a great quantity of furniture which could not be carried off, they returned home, loaded with vast plunder, taking with them as prisoner a man named Silva, the principal noble of Leptis, whom they found with his family at his country house.
5. The people of Leptis being terrified at this sudden disaster, not wishing to incur the further calamities with which the arrogance of the barbarians threatened them, implored the protection of Count Romanus, who had recently been promoted to the government of Africa. But when he came at the head of an army, and received their request to come to their immediate assistance in their distress, he declared that he would not move a step further unless abundant magazines and four thousand camels were provided for his troops.
6. At this answer the wretched citizens were stupefied, and declared to him, that after the devastations and conflagrations to which they had been exposed, it was impossible for them to make such exertions, even for the reparation of the cruel disasters which they had suffered; and, after waiting forty days there with vain pretences and excuses, the count retired without attempting any enterprise.
7. The people of Tripoli, disappointed in their hopes, and dreading the worst extremities, at their next council day, appointed Severus and Flaccianus ambassadors to carry to Valentinian some golden images of victory in honour of his accession to the empire, and to state fully and boldly to him the miserable distress of the province.
8. When this step became known, Romanus sent a swift horseman as a messenger to the master of the offices, Remigius, his own kinsman and his partner in plunder, bidding him take care, that by the emperor's decision, the investigation into this matter should be committed to the deputy and himself.
9. The ambassadors arrived at the court, and having obtained access to the emperor, they, in a set speech, laid all their distresses before him, and presented him with a decree of their council in which the whole affair was fully set forth. When the emperor had read it, he neither trusted the report of the master of the offices, framed to defend the misconduct of the count, nor, on the other hand, did he place confidence in these men who made a contrary report; but promised a full investigation into the affair, which however was deferred in the manner in which high authorities are wont to let such matters give place to their more pleasant occupations and amusements.
10. While waiting in suspense and protracted anxiety for some relief from the emperor's camp, the citizens of Tripoli were again attacked by troops of the same barbarians, now elated with additional confidence by their past successes. They ravaged the whole territory of Leptis and also that of OEa, spreading total ruin and desolation everywhere, and, at last, retired loaded with an enormous quantity of spoil, and having slain many of our officers, the most distinguished of whom were Rusticianus, one of the priests, and the ædile, Nicasius.
11. This invasion was prevented from being repelled by the fact, that at the entreaty of the ambassadors, the conduct of the military affairs, which had at first been intrusted to Ruricius, the president, had been subsequently transferred to Count Romanus.
12. So now a new messenger was sent to Gaul with an account of this fresh disaster; and his intelligence roused the emperor to great anger. So Palladius, his secretary, who had also the rank of tribune, was sent at once to liquidate the pay due to the soldiers, who were dispersed over Africa, and to examine into all that had taken place in Tripoli, he being an officer whose report could be trusted.
13. But while all these delays took place from the continual deliberations held on the case, and while the people of Tripoli were still waiting for the answer, the Asturians, now still more insolent after their double success, like birds of prey whose ferocity has been sharpened by the taste of blood, flew once more to attack them; and having slain every one who did not flee from the danger, they carried off all the spoil which they had previously left behind, cutting down all the trees and vines.
14. Then a certain citizen named Mychon, a man of high station and great influence, was taken prisoner in the district outside of the city; but before they could bind him he gave them the slip, and because an attack of gout rendered him unable to effect his escape, he threw himself down a dry well, from which he was drawn up by the barbarians with his ribs broken, and was conducted near to the gates of the city, where he was ransomed by the affection of his wife, and was drawn up to the battlements of the wall by a rope; but two days afterwards he died.
15. These events encouraged the pertinacity of the invaders, so that they advanced and attacked the very walls of Leptis, which resounded with the mournful wailings of the women, who were terrified in an extraordinary manner and quite bewildered, because they had never before been blockaded by an enemy. And after the city had been besieged for eight days continuously, during which many of the besiegers were wounded, while they made no progress, they retired much discouraged to their own country.
16. In consequence of these events, the citizens, being still doubtful of their safety, and desirous of trying every possible resource, before the ambassadors who had been first sent had returned, sent Jovinus and Pancratius to lay before the emperor a faithful account of the sufferings which they had endured, and which they themselves had seen: these envoys found the former ambassadors, Severus and Flaccianus, at Carthage; and on asking them what they had done, they learnt that they had been referred for a hearing to the deputy and the count. And immediately after this Severus was attacked by a dangerous illness and died; but notwithstanding what they had heard, the new ambassadors proceeded on their journey to the court.
17. After this, when Palladius arrived in Africa, the count, who knew on what account he had come, and who had been warned before to take measures for his own safety, sent orders to the principal officers of the army by certain persons who were in his secrets, to pay over to him, as being a person of great influence, and being the person most nearly connected with the principal nobles of the palace, the chief part of the money for the soldiers' pay which he had brought over, and they obeyed him.
18. So he, having been thus suddenly enriched, reached Leptis; and that he might arrive at a knowledge of the truth, he took with him to the districts that had been laid waste, Erecthius and Aristomenes, two citizens of great eloquence and reputation, who freely unfolded to him the distress which their fellow-citizens and the inhabitants of the adjacent districts had suffered. They showed him everything openly; and so he returned after seeing the lamentable desolation of the province: and reproaching Romanus for his inactivity, he threatened to report to the emperor an accurate statement of everything which he had seen.
19. He, inflamed with anger and indignation, retorted that he also should soon make a report, that the man who had been sent as an incorruptible secretary had converted to his own uses all the money which had been sent out as a donation to the soldiers.
20. The consequence was that Palladius, being hampered by the consciousness of his flagitious conduct, proceeded from henceforth in harmony with Romanus, and when he returned to court, he deceived Valentinian with atrocious falsehoods, affirming that the citizens of Tripoli complained without reason. Therefore he was sent back to Africa a second time with Jovinus, the last of all the ambassadors (for Pancratius had died at Treves), in order that he, in conjunction with the deputy, might inquire into everything connected with the second embassy. And besides this, the emperor ordered the tongues of Erecthius and Aristomenes to be cut out, because this same Palladius had intimated that they made some malignant and disloyal statements.
21. The secretary, following the deputy, as had been arranged, came to Tripoli. When his arrival was known, Romanus sent one of his servants thither with all speed, and Cæcilius, his assessor, who was a native of the province; and by their agency (whether they employed bribery or deceit is doubtful) all the citizens were won over to accuse Jovinus, vigorously asserting that he had never issued any of the commands which he had reported to the emperor; carrying their iniquity to such a pitch, that Jovinus himself was compelled by them to confess, to his own great danger, that he had made a false report to the emperor.
22. When these events were learnt from Palladius on his return, Valentinian, being always inclined to severe measures, commanded the execution of Jovinus as the author of such a report, and of Cælestinus, Concordius, and Lucius, as privy to it, and partners in it. He also commanded Ruricius, the president, to be put to death for falsehood; the charge against him being aggravated by the circumstance that his report contained some violent and intemperate expressions.
23. Ruricius was executed at Sitifis; the rest were condemned at Utica by the sentence of the deputy Crescens. But before the death of the ambassadors, Flaccianus, while being examined by the deputy and the count, and while resolutely defending his own safety, was assailed with abuse, and then attacked with loud outcries and violence by the angry soldiers, and was nearly killed; the charge which they made against him being that the cause which had prevented the people of Tripoli from being defended was, that they had refused to furnish necessaries for the use of any expedition.
24. On this account he was thrown into prison, till the emperor could be consulted on his case, and should decide what ought to be done; but his gaolers were tampered with, as was believed, and he escaped from prison and fled to Rome, where he concealed himself for some time, till his death.
25. In consequence of this memorable catastrophe, Tripoli, which had been often harassed by external and domestic calamities, brought forward no further accusations against those who had left it undefended, knowing that the eternal eye of justice was awake, as well as the avenging furies of the ambassadors and the president. And a long time afterwards the following event took place:--Palladius, having been dismissed from the military service, and stript of all that nourished his pride, retired into private life.
26. And when Theodosius, that magnificent commander of armies, came into Africa to put down Firmus, who was entertaining some pernicious designs, and, as he was ordered, began to examine the movable effects of Romanus, he found among his papers a letter of a certain person named Meterius, containing this passage: "Meterius, to his lord and patron, Romanus;" and at the end of the letter many expressions unconnected with its general subject. "Palladius, who has been cashiered, salutes you. He who says he was cashiered for no other reason than that in the case of the people of Tripoli he made a false report to the sacred ears."
27. When this letter was sent to the court and read, Meterius was arrested by order of Valentinian, and confessed that the letter was his writing. Therefore Palladius also was ordered to appear, and reflecting on all the crimes he had committed, while at a halting place on the road, he watched an opportunity afforded him by the absence of his guards, as soon as it got dark (for, as it was a festival of the Christian religion, they passed the whole night in the church), and hanged himself.
28. The news of this propitious event--the death of the principal cause of their sad troubles--being known, Erecthius and Aristomenes, who when they first heard that their tongues were ordered to be cut out for sedition, had escaped, now issued from their hiding-places. And when the emperor Gratian was informed of the wicked deceit that had been practised (for by this time Valentinian was dead), their fears vanished, and they were sent to have their cause heard before Hesperus the proconsul and Flavian the deputy, men whose justice was supported by the righteous authority of the emperor, and who, after putting Cæcilius to the torture, learnt from his clear confession that he himself had persuaded the citizens to bring false accusations against the ambassadors. These actions were followed by a report which gave the fullest possible account of all that had taken place, to which no answer was given.
29. And that the whole story might want nothing of tragic interest, the following occurrence also took place after the curtain had fallen. Romanus went to court, taking with him Cæcilius, with the intent to accuse the judges as having been unduly biassed in favour of the province; and being received graciously by Merobaudes, he demanded that some more necessary witnesses should be summoned. And when they had come to Milan, and had shown by proofs which seemed correct, though these were false, that they had been falsely accused, they were acquitted, and returned home. Valentinian was still alive, when after these events which we have related, Remigius also retired from public life, and afterwards hanged himself, as we shall relate in the proper place.
[165] See the Iliad, XVIII. 1. 645, where Ajax prays:--
"Lord of earth and air, O King! O Father, hear my humble prayer! Dispel this cloud, the light of heaven restore; Give me to see, and Ajax asks no more! If Greece must perish, we thy will obey, But let us perish in the face of day."
POPE'S Trans., 1. 727, etc.
[166] See Gibbon, vol. III. p. 97 (Bohn's edition).
[167] This is an allusion to the story of Castor and Pollux bringing news of the victory gained at the battle of Regillus to Domitius (B.C. 496). The legend adds that they stroked his black beard, which immediately became red; from which he and his posterity derived the surname of Ænobarbus.--See Dion. Hal. vi. 13.
[168] Marius Maximus was an author who wrote an account of the lives of the Cæsars.
[169] § 20 is mutilated, so that no sense can be extracted from the remainder of it.
[170] Two brothers who had been colleagues in several important offices, and who were at last put to death together by Commodus.
[171] The end of § 22 is also mutilated.
[172] This passage, again, seems hopelessly mutilated.
[173] Cicero, de Amicitia, c. xxi.
[174] These are not in reality noble names, but names derived from low occupations. Trulla is a dish; Salsula, belonging to pickles, &c.
[175] Compare Juvenal's description of the circumspect in his time:--
"Atque duas tantum resarexius optat Panem et Circenses."
XXIX. ARGUMENT
I. Theodorus, the secretary, aims at the imperial authority, and being accused of treason before Valens at Antioch, and convicted, is executed, with many of his accomplices.--II. In the East many persons are informed against as guilty of poisoning and other crimes; and being condemned (some rightly, some wrongfully), are executed.--III. In the West many instances occur of the ferocity and insane cruelty of the emperor Valentinian.--IV. Valentinian crosses the Rhine on a bridge of boats, but, through the fault of a soldier, fails in an attempt to surprise Macrianus, the king of the Allemanni.--V. Theodosius, the commander of the cavalry in Gaul, in several battles defeats Formus Maorus, the son of Nubelis Regulus, who had revolted from Valentinian; and, after having driven him to kill himself, restores peace to Africa.--VI. The Quadi, being provoked by the wicked murder of their king Galerius, in conjunction with the Sarmatians, lay waste both the Pannonias and Valeria with fire and sword, and destroy almost the whole of two legions--A dissertation on the city prefecture of Claudius.
I.
A.D. 371.
§ 1. At the conclusion of the winter, Sapor, king of Persia, being full of cruelty and arrogance from the confidence engendered by his former battles, having completed his army to its full number, and greatly strengthened it, sent out a force of cuirassiers, archers, and mercenary troops, to make an invasion of our territories.
2. Against this force, Count Trajan and Vadomarius, the ex-king of the Allemanni, advanced with a mighty army, having been enjoined by the emperor to remember his orders to act on the defensive rather than on the offensive against the Persians.
3. When they arrived at Vagabanta, a place well suited for the manoeuvres of the legions, they supported against their will a rapid charge which was made upon them by the squadrons of the enemy, and retreated with the design not to be the first to slay any of the hostile soldiers, and not to be looked upon as guilty of having broken the treaty. At last, under the pressure of extreme necessity, they came to an engagement with the barbarians, and after having slain a great number of them, were victorious.
4. During the cessation of regular operations which ensued, several slight skirmishes occurred through the impatience of both armies, which ended with different results; and at last the summer ended, and a truce was agreed to by common consent, and the two armies separated, though the generals were violently inflamed against each other. The king of Parthia, intending to pass the winter at Ctesiphon, returned to his own home, and the Roman emperor went to Antioch; and while he tarried there, in complete security from foreign enemies, he had very nearly perished through domestic treachery, as shall be related in the coming narrative.
5. A certain Procopius, a restless man, at all times covetous and fond of disturbances, had persuaded Anatolius and Spudasius, officers about the palace, who had been ordered to restore what they had appropriated from the treasury, to bring a plot against the Count Fortunatianus, who was especially obnoxious as being represented to be the principal demander of this restitution. He, being a man of naturally harsh temper, was thereupon inflamed almost to insanity, and exercising the authority of the office which he filled, he delivered up to trial before the tribunal of the prefect a person of the lowest birth, named Palladius, for being a poisoner in the train of Anatolius and Spudasius; Heliodorus, also an interpreter of the Fates from the events which happened at any one's birth; with the intent that they should be compelled by torture to relate all that they knew.
6. And when they came with rigid scrutiny to inquire into what had been done or attempted, Palladius boldly exclaimed, that the matters now under investigation were trivial, and such as might well be passed over; that he himself, if he might be allowed to speak, could bring forward some circumstances both formidable and more important, which, having been prepared with great exertion, would throw everything into confusion, if they were not provided against beforehand. Being ordered to explain without fear all he knew, he made a deposition at great length, affirming that Fidustius the president, and Pergamius and Irenæus, had secretly learnt, by the detestable arts of magic, the name of the person who should become emperor after Valens.
7. Fidustius was at once arrested (for he happened by chance be on the spot), and being brought secretly before the emperor, when confronted with the informer, he did not attempt by any denial to throw a doubt on what was already revealed, but laid open the whole of this wretched plot; confessing in plain words, that he himself, with Hilarius and Patricius, men skilled in the art of soothsaying, of whom Hilarius had filled high offices in the palace, had held consultations about the future possessors of the empire; that by secret arts they had searched into the Fates, which had revealed to them the name of an excellent emperor, admonishing them at the same time that a miserable end awaited the investigators of these omens.[176]
8. And while they were hesitating, unable to decide who at that moment was superior to all other men in vigour of mind, Theodorus appeared to excel all the rest, a man who had already arrived at the second class of secretaries. And in truth he deserved the opinion which they entertained of him; for he was descended from an ancient and illustrious family in Gaul; he had been liberally educated from his earliest childhood; he was eminent for modesty, prudence, humanity, courtesy, and literature. He always appeared superior to the post or place which he was filling, and was equally popular among high and low, and he was nearly the only man whose tongue was never unbridled, but who always reflected on what he was going to say, yet without ever being restrained by any fear of danger.
9. Fidustius, who had been tortured so severely that he was at the point of death, added further, that all that he had now stated he had communicated to Theodorus by the intervention of Eucærius, a man of great literary accomplishments, and of very high reputation; indeed, he had a little time before governed Asia with the title of proprefect.
10. Eucærius was now thrown into prison; and when a report of all that had taken place was, as usual, laid before the emperor, his amazing ferocity burst out more unrestrainedly than ever, like a burning firebrand, being fed by the base adulation of many persons, and especially of Modestus, at that time prefect of the prætorium.
11. He, being every day alarmed at the prospect of a successor, addressed himself to the task of conciliating Valens, who was of a rustic and rather simple character, by tickling him with all kinds of disguised flattery and caresses, calling his uncouth language and rude expressions "flowers of Ciceronian eloquence." Indeed, to raise his vanity higher, he would have promised to raise him up to the stars if he had desired it.
12. So Theodorus also was ordered to be arrested with all speed at Constantinople, to which city he had repaired on some private business, and to be brought to the court. And while he was on his way back, in consequence of various informations and trials which were carried on day and night, numbers of people were dragged away from the most widely separated countries--men eminent for their birth and high authority.
13. The public prisons, being now completely filled, could no longer contain the crowds which were confined in them, while private houses were equally crammed to suffocation, for nearly every one was a prisoner, and every man shuddered to think when it might be his turn or that of his nearest relations.
14. At last Theodorus himself arrived, in deep mourning, and half dead through fear. And while he was kept concealed in some obscure place in the vicinity, and all things were being got ready for his intended examination, the trumpet of civil discord suddenly sounded.
15. And because that man who knowingly passes over facts appears to be an equally unfaithful historian with him who invents circumstances which never happened, we do not deny (what, in fact, is quite undoubted) that the safety of Valens had often before been attacked by secret machinations, and was now in the greatest possible danger. And that a sword, as one may say, was presented to his throat by the officers of the army, and only averted by Fate, which was reserving him for lamentable misfortunes in Thrace.
16. For one day as he was taking a gentle nap in the afternoon, in a shady spot between Antioch and Seleucia, he was attacked by Sallust, at that time an officer of the Scutarii; and on various other occasions he was plotted against by many other persons, from whose treacherous designs he only escaped because the precise moment of his death had been determined at his birth by Destiny.
17. As sometimes happened in the times of the emperors Commodus and Severus, whose safety was continually assailed with extreme violence, so that after many various dangers at the hands of their countrymen, the one was dangerously wounded by a dagger in the amphitheatre, as he entered it for the purpose of witnessing an entertainment, by a senator named Quintianus, a man of wicked ambition. The other, when extremely old, was assailed as he was lying in his bedchamber, by a centurion of the name of Saturninus, who was instigated to the act by Plautian the prefect, and would have been killed if his youthful son had not come to his assistance.
18. Valens, therefore, was to be excused for taking every precaution to defend his life, which traitors were endeavouring to take. But it was an unpardonable fault in him that, through tyrannical pride, he, with haste and with inconsiderate and malicious persecution, inflicted the same severities on the innocent as on the guilty, making no distinction between their deserts; so that while the judges were still doubting about their guilt, the emperor had made up his mind about their punishment, and men learnt that they were condemned before they knew that they were suspected.
19. But his obstinate resolution was strengthened since it received a spur from his own avarice, and that also of those who at that time were about the palace, and were constantly seeking new sources of gain; while if on any rare occasion any mention was made of humanity, they styled it slackness; and by their bloodthirsty flatteries perverted the resolution of a man who bore men's lives on the tip of his tongue, guiding it in the worst direction, and assailing everything with unseemly confusion, while seeking to accomplish the total ruin of the most opulent houses.
20. For Valens was a man who was especially exposed and open to the approaches of treacherous advisers, being tainted with two vices of a most mischievous character: one, that when he was ashamed of being angry, that very shame only rendered him the more intolerably furious; and secondly, that the stories which, with the easiness of access of a private individual, he heard in secret whispers, he took at once to be true and certain, because his haughty idea of the imperial dignity did not permit him to examine whether they were true or not.
21. The consequence was that, under an appearance of clemency, numbers of innocent men were driven from their homes, and sent into exile: and their property was confiscated to the public treasury, and then seized by himself for his private uses; so that the owners, after their condemnation, had no means of subsistence but such as they could beg; and were worn out with the distresses of the most miserable poverty. For fear of which that wise old poet Theognis advises a man to rush even into the sea.[177]
22. And even if any one should grant that these sentences were in some instances right, yet it surely was an odious severity; and from this conduct of his it was remarked that the maxim was sound which says, "that there is no sentence more cruel than that which, while seeming to spare, is still harsh."
23. Therefore all the chief magistrates and the prefect of the prætorium, to whom the conduct of these investigations was committed, having been assembled together, the racks were got ready, and the weights, and lead, and scourges, and other engines of torture. And all places resounded with the horrors of the cruel voice of the executioners, and the cries uttered amid the clanking of chains: "Hold him!" "Shut him up!" "Squeeze him!" "Hide him!" and other yells uttered by the ministers of those hateful duties.
24. And since we saw numbers condemned to death after having endured cruel torture, everything being thrown into complete confusion as if in perfect darkness, because the complete recollection of everything which then took place has in some degree escaped me, I will mention briefly what I do remember.
25. Among the first who were summoned before the bench, was Pergamius, who, as we have already mentioned, was betrayed by Palladius, who accused him of having arrived at a foreknowledge of certain events through wicked incantations. As he was a man of exceeding eloquence, and very likely to say dangerous things, and after some very trivial interrogatories had been put to him, seeing that the judges were hesitating what questions to put first and what last, he began himself to harangue them boldly, and shouting out the names with a loud voice and without any cessation, he named several thousand persons as accomplices with himself, demanding that people should be brought forward to be accused of great crimes from every part of the empire, up to the very shores of the great Atlantic. The task that he thus seemed to be putting together for them was too arduous; so they condemned him to death; and afterwards put whole troops of others to death, till they came to the case of Theodorus, which was regarded, after the manner of the Olympian games, as a crowning of the whole.
26. The same day, among other circumstances, this melancholy event took place, that Salia, who a little while before had been the chief treasurer in Thrace, when he was about to be brought out of his prison to have his cause heard, and was putting on his shoes, as if suddenly overwhelmed by the dread of his impending destruction, died in the hands of his gaolers.
27. So when the court was opened, and when the judges exhibited the decrees of the law, though, in accordance with the desire of the emperor, they moderated the severity of the charges brought before them, one general alarm seized all people. For Valens had now so wholly departed from justice, and had become so accomplished in the infliction of injury, that he was like a wild beast in an amphitheatre; and if any one who had been brought before the court escaped, he grew furious beyond all restraint.
28. Presently Patricius and Hilarius were brought before the court, and were ordered to enumerate the whole series of their actions: and as they differed a little at the beginning of their statement, they were both put to the torture, and presently the tripod which they had used was brought in;[178] and they, being reduced now to the greatest extremity, gave a true account of the whole affair from the very beginning. And first Hilarius spoke as follows:--
29. "We did construct, most noble judges, under most unhappy auspices, this little unfortunate tripod which you see, in the likeness of that at Delphi, making it of laurel twigs: and having consecrated it with imprecations of mysterious verses, and with many decorations and repeated ceremonies, in all proper order, we at last moved it; and the manner in which we moved it as often as we consulted it upon any secret affair, was as follows:--
30. "It was placed in the middle of a building, carefully purified on all sides by Arabian perfumes; and a plain round dish was placed upon it, made of different metals. On the outer side of which the four-and-twenty letters of the alphabet were engraved with great skill, being separated from one another by distances measured with great precision.
31. "Then a person clothed in linen garments, and shod with slippers of linen, with a small linen cap on his head, bearing in his hand sprigs of vervain as a plant of good omen, in set verses, propitiated the deity who presides over foreknowledge, and thus took his station by this dish, according to all the rules of the ceremony. Then over the tripod he balanced a ring which he held suspended by a flaxen thread of extreme fineness, and which had also been consecrated with mystic ceremonies. And as this ring touched and bounded off from the different letters which still preserved their distances distinct, he made with these letters, by the order in which he touched them, verses in the heroic metre, corresponding to the questions which we had asked; the verses being also perfect in metre and rhythm; like the answers of the Pythia which are so celebrated, or those given by the oracles of the Branchidæ.
32. "Then, when we asked who should succeed the present emperor, since it was said that it would be a person of universal accomplishments, the ring bounded up, and touched the two syllables ΘΕΟ; and then as it added another letter, some one of the bystanders exclaimed that Theodorus was pointed out by the inevitable decrees of Fate. We asked no further questions concerning the matter: for it seemed quite plain to us that he was the man who was intended."
33. And when he had with this exactness laid the knowledge of this affair open to the eyes of the judges, he added with great benevolence, that Theodorus knew nothing of the matter. When after this they were asked whether the oracles which they had consulted had given them any foreknowledge of their present sufferings, they repeated these well-known verses which clearly pronounce that this employment of investigating those high secrets would cost them their lives. Nevertheless, they added, that the Furies equally threatened the judges themselves, and also the emperor, breathing only slaughter and conflagration against them. It will be enough to quote the three final verses.
"Οὐ μὰν νηποινίγε σὸν ἔσσεται αἷμα, καὶ αὐτοῖς Τισφόνη βαρύμηνις ἐφοπλίζει κανιὸν οῖτον Ἔν πεδίοισι Μίμαντος ἀλαλεμένοισιν ἄρηα."
"Thy blood shall not fall unaveng'd on earth: The fierce Tisiphone still keeps her eye Fixed on thy slayers; arming evil fate Against them when arrayed on Mima's plain They seek to stem the tide of horrid war."
When he had read these verses they were both tortured with great severity, and carried away dead.
34. Afterwards, that the whole workshop where the wickedness had been wrought might be disclosed to the world, a great number of men of rank were brought in, among whom were some of the original promoters of the whole business. And when each, regarding nothing but his own personal safety, sought to turn the destruction which menaced himself in some other quarter, by the permission of the judges, Theodorus began to address them. First of all, he humbled himself with entreaties for pardon; then being compelled to answer more precisely to the charges alleged, he proved that he, after having been informed of the whole affair by Eucærius, was prevented by him from repeating it to the emperor, as he had often attempted to do: since Eucærius affirmed that what did not spring from a lawless desire of reigning, but from some fixed law of inevitable fate, would surely come to pass.
35. Eucærius, when cruelly tortured, confirmed this statement by his own confession. His own letters were employed to convict Theodorus, letters which he had written to Hilarius full of indirect hints, which showed that he had conceived a sure hope of such events from the prophecies of the soothsayers; and was not inclined to delay, but was looking for an opportunity of attaining the object of his desires.
36. After the establishment of these facts, the prisoners were removed; and Eutropius, who at that time was governing Asia with the rank of proconsul, having been involved in the accusation as having been a partisan of theirs, was nevertheless acquitted; being exculpated by Pasiphilus the philosopher, who, though cruelly tortured to make him implicate Eutropius by a wicked lie, could not be moved from his vigorous resolution and fortitude.
37. To that was added the philosopher Simonides, a young man, but the most rigidly virtuous of all men in our time. An information had been laid against him as having been made aware of what was going on by Fidustius, as he saw that his cause depended, not on its truth, but on the will of one man, avowed that he had known all that was alleged, but had forborne to mention it out of regard for his character for constancy.
38. When all these matters had been minutely inquired into, the emperor, in answer to the question addressed to him by the judges, ordered them all to be condemned and at once executed: and it was not without shuddering that the vast populace beheld the mournful spectacle; filling the whole air with lamentations (since they looked on the misery of each individual as threatening the whole community with a similar fate) when the whole number of accused persons, except Simonides, were executed in a melancholy manner. Simonides being reserved to be burnt alive by the express command of the savage judge, who was enraged at his dignified constancy.
39. And he, abandoning life as an imperious mistress, and defying the sudden destruction thus coming on him, was burnt without giving any sign of shrinking; imitating, in his death, the philosopher Peregrinus, surnamed Proteus, who having determined to quit the world, at the quinquennial games of Olympia, in the sight of all Greece, mounted a funeral pile which he had built himself, and was there burnt alive.
40. After his death, on the ensuing days a vast multitude of almost all ranks, whose names it would be too arduous a task to enumerate, being convicted by calumnious accusations, were despatched by the executioners, after having been first exhausted by every description of torture. Some were put to death without a moment's breathing-time or delay, while the question was still being asked whether they deserved to be punished at all; in fact, men were slaughtered like sheep in all directions.
41. After this, innumerable quantities of papers, and many heaps of volumes were collected, and burnt under the eyes of the judges, having been taken out of various houses as unlawful books; in order to lessen the unpopularity arising from so many executions, though in fact, the greater part of them were books teaching various kinds of liberal accomplishments, or books of law.
42. Not long afterwards, Maximus, the celebrated philosopher, a man of vast reputation for learning, from whose eloquent discourses the emperor Julian derived his great learning and wisdom, being accused of having been acquainted with the verses of the oracle mentioned above, and confessing that he had known something of them, but that he had not divulged what he knew, as being bound to keep silence out of consideration for his promise; but adding that he had of his own accord predicted that those who had consulted the oracle would perish by public execution, was conducted to Ephesus, his native place, and there beheaded. And thus by his own forfeiture of life, he found that the injustice of a judge is the worst of all crimes.
43. Diogenes, too, a man of noble family, great forensic eloquence and pre-eminent courtesy, who had some time before been governor of Bithynia, being entangled in the toils of wicked falsehood, was put to death in order to afford a pretext for seizing on his ample patrimony.
44. Alypius also, who had been governor of Britain, a man of most delightful mildness of temper, and who had lived a tranquil and retired life (since even against such as him did Injustice stretch forth her hands), was involved in the greatest misfortune; and was accused with Hierocles his son, a youth of most amiable disposition of having been guilty of poisoning, on the unsupported information of a low fellow named Diogenes, who had been tortured with extreme severity to force him to make confessions which might please the emperor, or rather, which might please his accuser. When his limbs could no longer endure their punishment, he was burnt alive; and Alypius, after having had his property confiscated, was condemned to banishment, though by an extraordinary piece of good fortune he received back his son after he had been condemned, and had actually been led out to suffer a miserable death.
II.
§ 1. During all this time, Palladius, the original cause of these miseries, whom we have already spoken of as having been arrested by Fortunatianus, being, from the lowness of his original condition, a man ready to fall into every kind of wickedness, by heaping one murder on another diffused mourning and lamentation over the whole empire.
2. For being allowed to name any persons he chose, without distinction of rank, as men contaminated by the practice of forbidden arts, like a huntsman who has learnt to mark the secret tracks of wild beasts, he enclosed many victims within his wretched toils, some as being polluted with a knowledge of poisonings, others as accomplices of those who were guilty of treason.
3. And that wives too might not have leisure to weep over the miseries of their husbands, officers were sent at once to seal up the house of any one who was condemned, and who, while examining all the furniture, slipped in among it old women's incantations, or ridiculous love-tokens, contrived to bring destruction on the innocent; and then, when these things were mentioned before the bench, where neither law, nor religion, nor equity were present to separate truth from falsehood, those whom they thus accused, though utterly void of offence, without any distinction, youths, and decrepit old men, without being heard in their defence, found their property confiscated, and were hurried off to execution in litters.
4. One of the consequences in the eastern provinces was, that from fear of similar treatment, people burnt all their libraries; so great was the terror which seized upon all ranks. For, to cut my story short, at that time all of us crawled about as if in Cimmerian darkness, in the same kind of dread as the guest of Dionysius of Sicily; who, while feasting at a banquet more irksome than famine itself, saw a sword suspended over his head by a single horsehair.
5. There was a man named Bassianus, of most noble family, a secretary, and eminently distinguished for his military services, who, on a charge of having entertained ambitious projects, and of having sought oracles concerning their issue, though he declared he had only consulted the oracles to know the sex of his next child, was saved indeed from death by the great interest made for him by his relations who protected him; but he was stripped of all his splendid inheritance.
6. Amid all this destruction and ruin, Heliodorus, that hellish colleague of Palladius in bringing about these miseries (being what the common people call a mathematician), having been admitted into the secret conferences of the imperial palace, and been tempted by every kind of caress and cajolery to relate all he knew or could invent, was putting forth his fatal stings.
7. For he was carefully feasted on the most delicate food, and furnished with large sums of money to give to his concubines; and he strutted about in every direction with a pompous, haughty countenance, and was universally dreaded. Being the more confident and arrogant, because as he was high chamberlain, he could go constantly and openly to the brothels, in which, as he desired, he was freely entertained, while revealing the edicts of the "parental guardian of the state," which were destined to be disastrous to many.
8. And through his means, as an advocate at the bar, Valens was instructed beforehand in what would most contribute to success--what to place in the first part of his speech, and with what figures, and what inventions to work up splendid passages.
9. And as it would take a long time to enumerate all the devices of that villain, I will mention this one only, which, in its rash boldness, assailed the very pillars of the patrician dignity. As I have said before, he was raised to exceeding arrogance by being admitted to the secret conferences of the princes; and being, from the lowness of his birth, a man ready for any wickedness, he laid an information against that illustrious pair of consuls, the brothers Eusebius and Hypatius, relations of the former emperor Constantius, as having conceived desires of a higher fortune, and formed projects and entered into enterprises for the attainment of supreme power. Adding, in order to procure additional credit for this falsehood, that Eusebius had had a set of imperial robes prepared for him.
10. And when the story had been swallowed willingly, Valens raging and threatening, a prince who never ought to have had any power at all, because he thought that everything, even injustice, was in his power, was incessantly active in causing the production, even from the most distant countries, of all those whom the lawless accuser in profound security had insisted ought to be produced; and further commanded a prosecution to be instituted on the criminal charge.
11. And when equity had long been tossed to and fro by knotty difficulties, while that abandoned profligate persisted with unyielding obstinacy in maintaining the truth of his assertions, while the severest tortures were unable to wring any confession from the prisoners, and when every circumstance proved that those eminent men were free from all consciousness of anything of the kind, still the false accuser was treated with the same respect as he had previously received. But though the prisoners were sentenced to exile and a heavy fine, a short time afterwards they were recalled from banishment, restored to their former rank and dignity, and their fine repaid.
12. Still after all these shameful transactions, the prince did not proceed with any more moderation or decency than before; never considering that in a wise government it is well not to be too keen in hunting out offences, even as a means of inflicting distress upon one's enemies; and that nothing is so unbecoming as to display a bitterness of disposition in connection with supreme authority.
13. But when Heliodorus died, whether of sickness or through some deliberate violence is uncertain (I should not like to say, and I wish that the facts themselves were equally silent), many men of rank in mourning robes, among whom were these two brothers of consular rank, by the express command of the emperor, attended his funeral when he was borne to his grave by the undertakers.
14. At that time, and in that place, the whole vileness and stupidity of the ruler of the empire was publicly displayed. When he was entreated to abstain from abandoning himself to inconsolable grief, he remained obstinately inflexible, as if he had stopped his ears with wax to pass the rocks of the Sirens.
15. But at last, being overcome by the pertinacious entreaties of his court, he ordered some persons to go on foot, bareheaded, and with their hands folded, to the burial-place of this wretched gladiator to do him honour. One shudders now to recollect the decree by which so many men of high rank were humiliated, especially some of consular dignity, after all their truncheons and robes of honour, and all the worldly parade of having their names recorded in the annals of their nation.
16. Among them all, our friend Hypatius was most conspicuous, recommended as he was to every one by the beauty of the virtues which he had practised from his youth; being a man of quiet and gentle wisdom, preserving an undeviating honesty combined with the greatest courtesy of manner, so that he conferred a fresh lustre on the glory of his ancestors, and was an ornament to his posterity, by the memorable actions which he performed in the office of prefect, to which he was twice appointed.
17. At the same time, this circumstance came to crown the other splendid actions of Valens, that, while in the case of others he gave way to such furious violence, that he was even vexed when the severity of their punishment was terminated by death, yet he pardoned Pollentianus, the tribune, a man stained with such enormous wickedness, that at that very time he was convicted on his own confession of having cut out the womb of a living woman and taken from it her child, in order to summon forth spirits from the shades below, and to consult them about a change in the empire. He looked on this wretch with the eye of friendship, in spite of the murmurs of the whole bench of senators, and discharged him in safety, suffering him to retain not only his life, but his vast riches and full rank in the army.
18. O most glorious learning, granted by the express gift of heaven to happy mortals, thou who hast often refined even vicious natures! How many faults in the darkness of that age wouldst thou have corrected if Valens had ever been taught by thee that, according to the definition of wise men, empire is nothing else but the care of the safety of others; and that it is the duty of a good emperor to restrain power, to resist any desire to possess all things, and all implacability of passion, and to know, as the dictator Cæsar used to say, "That the recollection of cruelty was an instrument to make old age miserable!" And therefore that it behoves any one who is about to pass a sentence affecting the life and existence of a man, who is a portion of the world, and makes up the complement of living creatures, to hesitate long and much, and never to give way to intemperate haste in a case in which what is done is irrevocable. According to that example well known to all antiquity.
19. When Dolabella was proconsul in Asia, a matron at Smyrna confessed that she had poisoned her son and her husband, because she had discovered that they had murdered a son whom she had had by a former husband. Her case was adjourned--the council to whom it had been referred being in doubt how to draw a line between just revenge and unprovoked crime; and so she was remitted to the judgment of the Areopagus, those severe Athenian judges, who are said to have decided disputes even among the gods. They, when they had heard the case, ordered the woman and her accuser to appear before them again in a hundred years, to avoid either acquitting a poisoner, or punishing one who had been the avenger of her kindred. So that is never to be thought too slow which is the last of all things.
20. After all the acts of various iniquity already mentioned, and after even the free persons who were allowed to survive had been thus shamefully branded, the eye of Justice which never sleeps, that unceasing witness and avenger of events, became more attentive and vigilant. For the avenging Furies of those who had been put to death, working on the everlasting deity with their just complaints, kindled the torches of war, to confirm the truth of the oracle, which had given warning that no crime can be perpetrated with impunity.
21. While the affairs thus narrated were taking place, Antioch was exposed to great distress through domestic dissension, though not molested by any attacks on the side of Parthia. But the horrid troop of Furies, which after having caused all sorts of miseries there, had quitted that city, now settled on the neck of the whole of Asia, as will be seen in what follows.
22. A certain native of Trent, by name Festus, a man of the lowest obscurity of birth, being a relation of Maximin, and one who had assumed the manly robe at the same time with himself, was cherished by him as a companion, and by the will of the Fates had now crossed over to the east, and having there become governor of Syria, and master of the records, he set a very good and respectable example of lenity. From this he was promoted to govern Asia with the rank of proconsul, being thus, as the saying is, borne on with a fair wind to glory.
23. And hearing that Maximin caused the destruction of every virtuous man, he began from this time to denounce his actions as mischievous and disgraceful. But when he saw that, in consequence of the removal of those persons whom he had impiously put to death, that wicked man had arrived at the dignity of prefect, he began to be excited to similar conduct and similar hopes. And suddenly changing his character like an actor, he applied himself to the study of doing injury, and went about with fixed and severe eyes, trusting that he also should soon become a prefect, if he only polluted himself with the blood of innocent men.
24. And although there are many and various instances in which, to put the best construction on them, he acted with great harshness, still it will be sufficient to enumerate a few, which are notorious and commonly spoken of, seeming to be done in rivalry of the deeds which were committed at Rome; for the principle of good and bad actions is the same everywhere, even if the importance of the circumstances be unequal.
25. There was a philosopher named Cæranius, a man of no inconsiderable merit, whom he put to death with the most cruel tortures, and without any one coming forward to avenge him, because, when writing familiarly to his wife, he had put a postscript in Greek, "σὺ δὲ νόει, καὶ στέφε τὴν πύλην."--"Do you take care and adorn the gate," which is a common expression to let the hearer know that something of importance is to be done.
26. There was a certain simple old woman who was wont to cure intermittent fever by a gentle incantation, whom he put to death as a witch, after she had been summoned, with his consent, to his daughter, and had cured her.
27. There was a certain citizen of high respectability, among whose papers, when they were searched by the officers on some business or other, was found the nativity of some one of the name of Valens. He, when asked on what account he had troubled himself about the star of the emperor, had repelled the accusation by declaring that it was his own brother Valens whose nativity was thus found, and when he promised to bring abundant proof that he had long been dead, the judges would not wait for evidence of the truth of his assertion, but put him to the torture and cruelly slew him.
28. A young man was seen in the bath to put the fingers of each hand alternately against the marble and against his own chest, and then to repeat the names of the seven vowels, fancying that a remedy for a pain in the stomach. For this he was brought before the court, put to the torture, and then beheaded.
III.
§ 1. These events, and the account of Gaul to which I am now about to proceed, will cause some interruption to the narration of occurrences in the metropolis. Among many terrible circumstances, I find that Maximin was still prefect, who by the wide extent of his power was a cruel prompter to the emperor, who combined the most unrestrained licence with unbounded power. Whoever, therefore, considers what I have related, must also reflect on the other facts which have been passed over, and, like a prudent man, he will pardon me if I do not record everything which the wickedness of certain counsels has occasioned by exaggerating every accusation?
2. For while severity, the foe of all right principles, increased, Valentinian, being a man of a naturally ferocious disposition, when Maximin arrived, having no one to give him good advice or to restrain him, proceeded, as if hurried on by a storm of winds and waves, to all kinds of cruel actions; so that when angry, his voice, his countenance, his gait, and his complexion, were continually changing. And of this passionate intemperance there are many undoubted instances, of which it will be sufficient to recount a few.
3. A certain grown-up youth, of those called pages, having been appointed to take care of a Spartan hound which had been brought out for hunting, let him loose before the appointed moment, because the animal, in its efforts to escape, leaped upon him and bit him; and for this he was beaten to death and buried the same day.
4. The master of a workshop, who had brought the emperor an offering of a breastplate most exquisitely polished, and who was therefore in expectation of a reward, was ordered by him to be put to death because the steel was of less weight than he considered requisite.... There was a certain native, of Epirus, a priest of the Christian religion.[179] ...
5. Constantianus, the master of the stables, having ventured to change a few of the horses, to select which he had been despatched to Sardinia, was, by his order, stoned to death. Athanasius, a very popular character, being suspected by him of some levity in the language he held among the common people, was sentenced to be burnt alive if he ever did anything of the kind again; and not long afterwards, being accused of having practised magic, he was actually burnt, no pardon being given even to one whose devices had often afforded the emperor great amusement.
6. Africanus was an advocate of great diligence, residing in Rome; he had had the government of one province, and aspired to that of another. But when Theodosius, the commander of the cavalry, supported his petition for such an office, the emperor answered him somewhat rudely, "Away with you, O count, and change the head of the man who wishes to have his province changed." And by this sentence a man of great eloquence perished, only because, like many others, he wished for higher preferment.
7. Claudian and Sallust were officers of the Jovian legion, who had gradually risen to the rank of tribunes; but they were accused by some man of the most despicable baseness of having said something in favour of Procopius when he aimed at the imperial power. And when a diligent investigation into this charge had proved ineffectual, the emperor gave orders to the captains of the cavalry who had been employed in it, to condemn Claudian to banishment, and to pass sentence of death upon Sallust, promising that he would reprieve him as he was being led to execution. The sentence was passed, as he commanded; but Sallust was not reprieved, nor was Claudian recalled from exile till after the death of Valentinian.... After they had been exposed to frequent tortures.
8. Nevertheless after so many persons had been put to the question, some of whom had even expired under the severity of their tortures, still no traces of the alleged crimes could be discovered. In this affair some of the body-guards, who had been sent to arrest certain persons, were, in a most unusual manner, beaten to death.
9. The mind shudders at the idea of recapitulating all that took place, and, indeed, dreads to do so, lest we should appear to make a business of pointing out the vices of an emperor who, in other respects, had many good qualities. But this one circumstance may not be passed over in silence nor suppressed, that he kept two ferocious she-bears who were used to eat men; and they had names, Golden Camel and Innocence, and these beasts he took such care of that he had their dens close to his bedchamber; and appointed over them trusty keepers who were bound to take especial care that the odious fury of these monsters should never be checked. At last he had Innocence set free, after he had seen the burial of many corpses which she had torn to pieces, giving her the range of the forests as a reward for her services.[180]
IV.
§ 1. These actions are the most undeniable proof of his habits and real character; but even the most obstinate disparager of his disposition cannot deny him the praise of great ability, which never forgot the interests of the state; especially when it is recollected, that perhaps it is a greater and more beneficial, as well as difficult, task to control the barbarians by means of an army, than to repulse them. And when ... If any one of the enemy moved, he was seen from the watch-towers and immediately overwhelmed.
2. But among many other subjects of anxiety, the first and most important thing of all which was agitated, was to seize alive, either by force or by trickery, as Julian had formerly taken Vadomarius, Macrianus, the king, who, through all the changes which had taken place, had obtained a considerable increase of power, and was rising up against our people with full-grown strength: and after all the measures had been taken which seemed required by the affair itself and the time, and when it had been learnt by information collected from deserters when the aforesaid monarch could be seized before he expected anything of the kind, the emperor threw a bridge of boats across the Rhine with as much secrecy as was possible, lest any one should interpose any obstacle to such a work.
3. Severus, who was the commander of the infantry, led the van of the army towards Wiesbaden; and then, reflecting on his scanty numbers, halted in consternation; being afraid lest, as he should be quite unequal to resist them, he should be overwhelmed by the mass of the hostile army if it attacked him.
4. And because he suspected that the dealers who brought slaves for sale, whom he found at that place by chance, would be likely to repair with speed to the king to tell him what they had seen, he stripped them of all their merchandise, and then put them all to death.
5. Our generals were now encouraged by the arrival of more troops; and speedily contrived a temporary camp, because none of the baggage-beasts had arrived, nor had any one a proper tent, except the emperor, for whom one was constructed of carpets and tapestry. Then waiting a short time on account of the darkness of the night, at daybreak the army quitted the camp and proceeded onwards; being led by guides well acquainted with the country. The cavalry, under Theodosius, its captain, was appointed to lead the way ... was inconvenienced by the great noise made by his men; whom his repeated commands could not restrain from rapine and incendiarism. For the guards of the enemy being roused by the crackling of the flames, and suspecting what had happened, put the king on a light carriage and carrying him off with great speed, hid him among the defiles of the neighbouring mountains.
6. Valentinian being defrauded of the glory of taking him, and that neither through any fault of his own or of his generals, but through the insubordination of his soldiers, which was often the cause of great misfortunes to the Roman state, laid waste all the enemy's country for fifty miles with fire and sword; and then returned dejected to Treves.
7. Where like a lion raging for the loss of a deer or a goat and champing with empty jaws, while fear was breaking and dividing the enemy, he proceeded to command the Bucenobantes, who are a tribe of the Allemanni opposite to Mayence, to elect Fraomarius as their king in place of Macrianus. And, shortly afterwards, when a fresh invasion had entirely desolated that canton, he removed him to Britain, where he gave him the authority of a tribune, and placed a number of the Allemanni under his command, forming for him a division strong both in its numbers and the excellence of its appointments. He also gave two other nobles of the same nation, by name Bitheridus and Hortarius, commands in his army; of whom Hortarius, being betrayed by the information of Florentius, Duke of Germany, who accused him of having written letters to Macrianus and the chieftains of the barbarians, containing language unfavourable to the republic, was put to the torture, and having been compelled to confess the truth, was condemned to be burnt alive.
V.
§ 1. After this ... it seems best to relate these matters in one connected narrative, lest the introduction of other affairs wholly unconnected with them, and which took place at a distance, should lead to confusion, and prevent the reader from acquiring a correct knowledge of these numerous and intricate affairs.
2. Nubel, who had been the most powerful chieftain among the Mauritanian nations, died, and left several sons, some legitimate, others born of concubines, of whom Zamma, a great favourite of the Count Romanus, was slain by his brother Firmus; and this deed gave rise to civil discords, and wars. For the count being exceedingly eager to avenge his death, made formidable preparations for the destruction of his treacherous enemy. And as continual reports declared, most exceeding pains were taken in the palace, that the despatches of Romanus, which contained many most unfavourable statements respecting Firmus, should be received and read by the prince; while many circumstances strengthened their credibility. And, on the other hand, that those documents which Firmus frequently, for the sake of his own safety, endeavoured to lay before the emperor by the agency of his friends, should be kept from his sight as long as possible, Remigius, a friend and relation of Romanus, and who was at that time master of the offices, availed himself of other more important affairs which claimed the emperor's attention to declare that Firmus's papers were all unimportant and superfluous, only to be read at a perfectly favourable opportunity.
3. But when Firmus perceived that these intrigues were going on to keep his defence out of sight, trembling for fear of the worst if all his excuses should be passed over, and he himself be condemned as disaffected and mischievous, and so be put to death, he revolted from the emperor's authority, and aided ... in devastation.[181]
4. Therefore, to prevent an implacable enemy from gaining strength by such an increase of force, Theodosius, the commander of the cavalry, was sent with a small body of the emperor's guards to crush him at once. Theodosius was an officer whose virtues and successes were at that time conspicuous above those of all other men: he resembled those ancient heroes, Domitius Corbulo, and Lusius; the first of whom was distinguished by a great number of gallant achievements in the time of Nero, and the latter of equal reputation under Trajan.
5. Theodosius marched from Arles with favourable auspices, and having crossed the sea with the fleet under his command so rapidly that no report of his approach could arrive before himself, he reached the coast of Mauritania Sitifensis; that portion of the coast being called, by the natives, Igilgitanum. There, by accident, he met Romanus, and addressing him kindly, sent him to arrange the stations of the sentries and the outposts, without reproaching him for any of the matters for which he was liable to blame.
6. And when he had gone to the other province, Mauritania Cæsariensis, he sent Gildo, the brother of Firmus and Maximus, to assist Vincentius, who, as the deputy of Romanus, was the partner of his disloyal schemes and thefts.
7. Accordingly, as soon as his soldiers arrived, who had been delayed by the length of the sea voyage, he hastened to Sitifis; and gave orders to the body-guards to keep Romanus and his attendants under surveillance. He himself remained in the city, full of embarrassment and anxiety, working many plans in his mind, while devising by what means or contrivances he could conduct his soldiers who were accustomed to a cold climate through a country parched up with heat; or how he could catch an enemy always on the alert and appearing when least expected, and who relied more on surprises and ambuscades than a pitched battle.
8. When news of these facts reached Firmus, first through vague reports, and subsequently by precise information, he, terrified at the approach of a general of tried valour, sent envoys and letters to him, confessing all he had done, and imploring pardon; asserting that it was not of his own accord that he had been driven on to an action which he knew to be criminal, but that he had been goaded on by unjust treatment of a flagitious character, as he undertook to show.
9. When his letters had been read, and when peace was promised him, and hostages received from him, Theodosius proceeded to the Pancharian station to review the legions to which the protection of Africa was intrusted, and who had been ordered to assemble to meet him at that place. There he encouraged the hopes of them all by confident yet prudent language; and then returned to Sitifis, having reinforced his troops with some native soldiers; and, not being inclined to admit of any delay, he hastened to regain his camp.
10. Among many other admirable qualities which he displayed, his popularity was immensely increased by an order which he issued, forbidding the army to demand supplies from the inhabitants of the province; and asserting, with a captivating confidence, that the harvests and granaries of the enemy were the magazines of the valour of our soldiers.
11. Having arranged these matters in a way which caused great joy to the landowners, he advanced to Tubusuptum, a town near Mons Ferratus, where he rejected a second embassy of Firmus, because it had not brought with it the hostages, as had been provided before. From this place, having made as careful an examination of everything as the time and place permitted, he proceeded by rapid marches to the Tyndenses and Massisenses; tribes equipped with light arms, under the command of Mascizel and Dius, brothers of Firmus.
12. When the enemy, being quick and active in all their movements, came in sight, after a fierce skirmish by a rapid interchange of missiles, both sides engaged in a furious contest; and amid the groans of the wounded and dying were heard also the wailing and lamentations of barbarian prisoners. When the battle was over, the territory for a great distance was ravaged and wasted by fire.
13. Among the havoc thus caused, the destruction of the farm of Petra, which was razed to the ground, and which had been originally built by Salmaces, its owner, a brother of Firmus, in such a manner as to resemble a town, was especially remarkable. The conqueror was elated at this success, and with incredible speed proceeded to occupy the town of Lamforctense, which was situated among the tribes already mentioned; here he caused large stores of provisions to be accumulated, in order that if, in his advance into the inland districts, he should find a scarcity of supplies, he might order them to be brought from this town, which would be at no great distance.
14. In the mean time Mascizel, having recruited his forces by auxiliaries which he had procured from the tribes on the borders, ventured on a pitched battle with our army, in which his men were routed, and a great portion of them slain, while he himself was with difficulty saved from death by the speed of his horse.
15. Firmus, being weakened by the losses he had sustained in two battles, and in great perplexity, in order to leave no expedient untried, sent some priests of the Christian religion with the hostages, as ambassadors to implore peace. They were received kindly, and having promised supplies of food for our soldiers, as they were commissioned to do, they brought back a propitious answer. And then, sending before him a present, Firmus himself went with confidence to meet the Roman general, mounted on a horse fitted for any emergency. When he came near Theodosius, he was awe-struck at the brilliancy of the standards, and the terrible countenance of the general himself; and leapt from his horse, and with neck bowed down almost to the ground, he, with tears, laid all the blame on his own rashness, and entreated pardon and peace.
16. He was received with a kiss, since such treatment of him appeared advantageous to the republic; and being now full of joyful hope, he supplied the army with provisions in abundance; and having left some of his own relations as hostages, he departed in order, as he promised, to restore those prisoners whom he had taken at the first beginning of these disturbances. And two days afterwards, without any delay, he restored the town of Icosium (of the founders of which we have already spoken), also the military standards, the crown belonging to the priest, and all the other things which he had taken, as he had been commanded to do.
17. Leaving this place, our general, advancing by long marches, reached Tiposa, where, with great elation, he gave answers to the envoys of the Mazices, who had combined with Firmus, and now in a suppliant tone implored pardon, replying to their entreaties that he would at once march against them as perfidious enemies.
18. When he had thus cowed them by the fear of impending danger, and had commanded them to return to their own country, he proceeded onwards to Cæsarea, a city formerly of great wealth and importance, of the origin of which we have given a full account in our description of Africa. When he reached it, and saw that nearly the whole of it had been destroyed by extensive conflagrations, and that the flint stones of the streets were covered with ashes, he ordered the first and second legions to be stationed there for a time, that they might clear away the heaps of cinders and ashes, and keep guard there to prevent a fresh attack of the barbarians from repeating this devastation.
19. When accurate intelligence of these events had arrived, the governors of the province and the tribune Vincentius issued forth from the places of concealment in which they had been lying, and came with speed and confidence to the general. He saw and received them with joy, and, while still at Cæsarea, having accurately inquired into every circumstance, he found that Firmus, while assuming the disguise of an ally and a suppliant, was secretly planning how, like a sudden tempest, to overwhelm his army while unprepared for any such danger.
20. On this he quitted Cæsarea, and went to the town of Sugabarritanum, which is on the slope of Mount Transcellensis. There he found the cavalry of the fourth cohort of archers, who had revolted to the rebels, and in order to show himself content with lenient punishments, he degraded them all to the lowest class of the service, and ordered them, and a portion of the infantry of the Constantian legion, to come to Tigaviæ with their tribunes, one of whom was the man who, for want of a diadem, had placed a neck-chain on the head of Firmus.
21. While these events were proceeding, Gildo and Maximus returned, and brought with them Bellenes, one of the princes of the Mazices, and Fericius, prefect of that nation, both of whom had espoused the faction of the disturber of the public peace, leading them forth in chains.
22. When this order had been executed, Theodosius himself came forth from his camp at daybreak, and on seeing those men surrounded by his army, said, "What, my trusty comrades, do you think ought to be done to these nefarious traitors?" And then, in compliance with the acclamations of the whole army, who demanded that their treason should be expiated by their blood, he, according to the ancient fashion, handed over those of them who had served in the Constantian legion to the soldiers to be put to death by them. The officers of the archers he sentenced to lose their hands, and the rest he condemned to death, in imitation of Curio, that most vigorous and severe general, who by this kind of punishment crushed the ferocity of the Dardanians, when it was reviving like the Lernæan hydra.
23. But malignant detractors, though they praise the ancient deed, vituperate this one as terrible and inhuman, affirming that the Dardanians[182] were implacable enemies, and therefore justly suffered the punishment inflicted on them; but that those soldiers, who belonged to our own standards, ought to have been corrected with more lenity, for falling into one single error. But we will remind these cavillers, of what perhaps they know already, namely, that this cohort was not only an enemy by its own conduct, but also by the example which it set to others.
24. He also commanded Bellenes and Fericius, who have been mentioned above, and whom Gildo brought with him, to be put to death; and likewise Curandius, a tribune of the archers, because he had always been backward in engaging the enemy himself, and had never been willing to encourage his men to fight. And he did this in recollection of the principle laid down by Cicero, that "salutary vigour is better than an empty appearance of clemency."
25. Leaving Sugabarri, he came to a town called Gallonatis, surrounded by a strong wall, and a secure place of refuge for the Moors, which, as such, he destroyed with his battering-rams. And having slain all the inhabitants, and levelled the walls, he advanced along the foot of Mount Ancorarius to the fortress of Tingetanum, where the Mazices were all collected in one solid body. He at once attacked them, and they encountered him with arrows and missiles of all kinds as thick as hail.
26. The battle proceeded for some time vigorously on both sides, till at last the Mazices, though a hardy and warlike race, being unable to withstand the fury of our men and the shock of their arms, after sustaining heavy loss, fled in every direction in disgraceful panic; and as they fled they were put to the sword in great numbers, with the exception only of those who, contriving to make their escape, afterwards, by their humble supplications, obtained the pardon which the times permitted to be granted to them.
27. Their leader Suggena, who succeeded Romanus, was sent into Mauritania Sitifensis to establish other garrisons necessary to prevent that province from being overrun; and he himself, elated by his recent achievements, marched against the nation of the Musones, who, from a consciousness of the ravages and murders of which they had been guilty, had joined the party of Firmus, hoping that he would soon obtain the chief authority.
28. Having advanced some distance, he found, near the town of Addense, that a number of tribes, who, though differing from each other in manners and language, were all animated with one feeling, in fomenting the outbreaks of terrible wars, being urged on and encouraged by the hope of great rewards from a sister of Firmus, named Cyria; who being very rich, and full of feminine resolution, was resolved to make a great effort to help her brother.
29. Therefore Theodosius, fearing to become involved in a war to which his forces were unequal, and that if he with his small force (for he had but three thousand five hundred men) should engage with an immense multitude, he should lose his whole army, at first hesitating between the shame of retreating and his wish to fight, gradually fell back a little; but presently was compelled by the overpowering mass of the barbarians to retire altogether.
30. The barbarians were exceedingly elated at this event, and pursued him with great obstinacy.... Being compelled by necessity to fight, he would have lost all his army and his own life, had not these tumultuous tribes, the moment they saw a troop of the Mazican auxiliaries, with a few Roman soldiers in their front, fancied that a numerous division was advancing to charge them, and in consequence taking to flight, opened to our men a way of escape which was previously shut against them.
31. Theodosius now drew off his army in safety; and when he had reached a town called Mazucanum, he found there a number of deserters, some of whom he burnt alive, and others he mutilated after the fashion of the archers whose hands had been cut off. He then proceeded towards Tipata, which he reached in the course of February.
32. There he stayed some time deliberating, like that old delayer, Fabius, on the circumstances around him, desiring to subdue the enemy, who was not only warlike, but so active as usually to keep out of bowshot, rather by manoeuvres and skill than by hazardous engagements.
33. Still he from time to time sent out envoys, skilled in the arts of persuasion, to the surrounding tribes, the Basuræ, the Cautauriani, the Anastomates, the Cafaves, the Davares, and other people in their neighbourhood, trying to bring them over to our alliance, either by presents, threats, or by promises of pardon for past violence ... seeking by delays and intrigues to crush an enemy who offered so stout a resistance to his attacks, just as Pompey in times past had subdued Mithridates.
34. On this account Firmus, avoiding immediate destruction, although he was strengthened by a large body of troops, abandoned the army which he had collected by a lavish expenditure of money, and as the darkness of night afforded a chance of concealment, he fled to the Caprarian mountains, which were at a great distance, and from their precipitous character inaccessible.
35. On his clandestine departure, his army also dispersed, being broken up into small detachments without any leader, and thus afforded our men an opportunity of attacking their camp. That was soon plundered, and all who resisted were put to the sword, or else taken prisoners; and then, having devastated the greater portion of the country, our wise general appointed prefects of tried loyalty as governors of the different tribes through which he passed.
36. The traitor was thrown into consternation by the unexpected boldness of his pursuit, and with the escort of only a few servants, hoping to secure his safety by the rapidity of his movements, in order to have nothing to impede his flight, threw away all the valuable baggage which he had taken with him. His wife, exhausted with continual toil....
37. Theodosius ... showing mercy to none of them, having refreshed his soldiers by a supply of better food, and gratified them by a distribution of pay, defeated the Capracienses and Abanni, who were the next tribes to them, in some unimportant skirmishes, and then advanced with great speed to the town of ... and having received certain intelligence that the barbarians had already occupied the hills, and were spread over the precipitous and broken ground to a great height, so that they were quite inaccessible to any but natives who were intimately acquainted with the whole country, he retired, giving the enemy an opportunity by a truce, short as it was, to receive an important reinforcement from the Ethiopians in the neighbourhood.
38. Then having assembled all their united forces, they rushed on to battle with threatening shouts, and an utter disregard of their individual safety, compelling him to retreat, full of consternation at the apparently countless numbers of their army. But soon the courage of his men revived, and he returned, bringing with him vast supplies, and with his troops in a dense column, and brandishing their shields with formidable gestures, he again engaged the enemy in close combat.
39. The barbarians rattled their arms in a savage manner, and our battalions, with equal rage, pushed on, they also rattling their shields against their knees. Still the general, like a cautious and prudent warrior, aware of the scantiness of his numbers, advanced boldly with his army in battle array, till he came to a point, at which he turned off, though still preserving an undaunted front, towards the city of Contensis, where Firmus had placed the prisoners whom he had taken from us, as in a remote and safe fortress. He recovered them all, and inflicted severe punishment, according to his custom, on the traitors among the prisoners, and also on the guards of Firmus.
40. While he was thus successful, through the protection of the Supreme Deity, he received correct intelligence from one of his scouts that Firmus had fled to the tribe of the Isaflenses. He at once entered their territory to require that he should be given up, with his brother Mazuca, and the rest of his relations: and on being refused, he declared war against the nation.
41. And after a fierce battle, in which the barbarians displayed extraordinary courage and ferocity, he threw his army into a solid circle; and then the Isaflenses were so completely overpowered by the weight of our battalions pressing on them that numbers were slain; and Firmus himself, gallantly as he behaved, after exposing himself to imminent danger by the rashness of his courage, put spurs to his horse, and fled; his horse being accustomed to make his way with great speed over the most rocky and precipitous paths. But his brother Mazuca was taken prisoner, mortally wounded.
42. It was intended to send him to Cæsarea, where he had left behind him many records of his atrocious cruelties; but his wounds reopened, and he died. So his head was cut off, and (his body being left behind) was conveyed to that city, where it was received with great joy by all who saw it.
43. After this our noble general inflicted most severe punishment, as justice required, on the whole nation of the Isaflenses, which had resisted till it was thus subdued in war. And he burnt alive one of the most influential of the citizens, named Evasius, and his son Florus, and several others, who were convicted on undeniable evidence of having aided the great disturber of tranquillity by their secret counsels.
44. From thence Theodosius proceeded into the interior, and with great resolution attacked the tribe of the Jubileni, to which he heard that Nubel, the father of Firmus, belonged; but presently he halted, being checked by the height of the mountains, and their winding defiles. And though he had once attacked the enemy, and opened himself a further road by slaying a great number of them, still, fearing the high precipices as places pre-eminently adapted for ambuscades, he withdrew, and led back his army in safety to a fortress called Audiense, where the Jesalenses, a warlike tribe, came over to him, voluntarily promising to furnish him with reinforcements and provisions.
45. Our noble general, exulting in this and similarly glorious achievements, now made the greatest efforts to overtake the original disturber of tranquillity himself, and therefore having halted for some time near a fortress named Medianum, he planned various schemes through which he hoped to procure that Firmus should be given up to him.
46. And while he was directing anxious thoughts and deep sagacity to this object, he heard that he had again gone back to the Isaflenses; on which, as before, without any delay, he marched against them with all possible speed. Their king, whose name was Igmazen, a man of great reputation in that country, and celebrated also for his riches, advanced with boldness to meet him, and addressed him thus, "To what country do you belong, and with what object have you come hither? Answer me." Theodosius, with firm mind and stern looks, replied, "I am a lieutenant of Valentinian, the master of the whole world, sent hither to destroy a murderous robber; and unless you at once surrender him, as the invincible emperor has commanded, you also, and the nation of which you are king, will be entirely destroyed." Igmazen, on receiving this answer, heaped a number of insulting epithets on our general, and then retired full of rage and indignation.
47. And the next morning at daybreak the two armies, breathing terrible threats against each other, advanced to engage in battle: nearly twenty thousand barbarians constituted the front of their army, with very large reserves posted behind, out of sight, with the intention that they should steal forward gradually, and hem in our battalions with their vast and unexpected numbers. These were also supported by a great number of auxiliaries of the Jesalenian tribes, whom we have mentioned as having promised reinforcements and supplies to ourselves.
48. On the other side, the Roman army, though scanty in numbers, nevertheless being full of natural courage, and elated by their past victories, formed into dense columns, and joining their shields firmly together, in the fashion of a testudo, planted their feet firmly in steady resistance; and from sunrise to the close of day the battle was protracted. A little before evening Firmus was seen mounted on a tall horse, expanding his scarlet cloak in order to attract the notice of his soldiers, whom he was exciting with a loud voice at once to deliver up Theodosius, calling him a ferocious and cruel man--an inventor of merciless punishments--as the only means of delivering themselves from the miseries which he was causing them.
49. This unexpected address only provoked some of our men to fight with more vigour than ever, but there were others whom it seduced to desert our ranks. Therefore when the stillness of night arrived, and the country became enveloped in thick darkness, Theodosius returned to the fortress of Duodiense, and, recognizing those soldiers who had been persuaded by fear and Firmus's speech to quit the fight, he put them all to death by different modes of execution; of some he cut off the right hands, others he burnt alive.
50. And conducting himself with ceaseless care and vigilance, he routed a division of the barbarians who, though afraid to show themselves by day, ventured, after the moon had set, to make an attempt upon his camp: some of those who advanced further than their comrades he took prisoners. Departing from this place, he made a forced march through by-roads to attack the Jesalensians, who had shown themselves disloyal and unfaithful. He could not obtain any supplies from their country, but he ravaged it, and reduced it to complete desolation. Then he passed through the towns of Mauritania and Cæsarensis, and returned to Sitifis, where he put to the torture Castor and Martinianus, who had been the accomplices of Romanus in his rapine and other crimes, and afterwards burnt them.
51. After this the war with the Isaflenses was renewed; and in the first conflict, after the barbarians had been routed with heavy loss, their king Igmazen, who had hitherto been accustomed to be victorious, agitated by fears of the present calamity, and thinking that all his alliances would be destroyed, and that he should have no hope left in life if he continued to resist, with all the cunning and secrecy that he could, fled by himself from the battle; and reaching Theodosius, besought him in a suppliant manner to desire Masilla, the chief magistrate of the Mazices, to come to him.
52. When that noble had been sent to him as he requested, he employed him as his agent to advise the general, as a man by nature constant and resolute in his plans, that the way to accomplish his purpose would be to press his countrymen with great vigour, and, by incessant fighting, strike terror into them; as, though they were keen partisans of Firmus, they were nevertheless wearied out by repeated disasters.
53. Theodosius adopted this advice, and, by battle after battle, so completely broke the spirits of the Isaflenses, that they fell away like sheep, and Firmus again secretly escaped, and hiding himself for a long time in out-of-the-way places and retreats, till at last, while deliberating on a further flight, he was seized by Igmazen, and put in confinement.
54. And since he had learnt from Masilla the plans which had been agitated in secret, he at last came to reflect that in so extreme a necessity there was but one remedy remaining, and he determined to trample under foot the love of life by a voluntary death; and having designedly filled himself with wine till he became stupefied, when, in the silence of the night, his keepers were sunk in profound slumber, he, fully awake from dread of the misfortune impending over him, left his bed with noiseless steps, and crawling on his hands and feet, conveyed himself to a distance, and then, having found a rope which chance provided for the end of his life, he fastened it to a nail which was fixed in the wall, and hanging himself, escaped the protracted sufferings of torture.
55. Igmazen was vexed at this, lamenting that he was thus robbed of his glory, because it had not been granted to him to conduct this rebel alive to the Roman camp; and so, having received a pledge of the state for his own safety, through the intervention of Masilla, he placed the body of the dead man on a camel, and when he arrived at the camp of the Roman army, which was pitched near the fortress of Subicarense, he transferred it to a pack-horse, and offered it to Theodosius, who received it with exultation.
56. And Theodosius having assembled a crowd of soldiers and citizens, and having asked them whether they recognized the face of the corpse, learnt by their answers that there was no question at all that it was the man; after this he stayed there a short time, and then returned to Sitifis in great triumph, where he was received with joyful acclamations of the people of every age and rank.
VI.
§ 1. While Theodosius was thus exerting himself, and toiling in Mauritania and Africa, the nation of the Quadi was roused to make a sudden movement. It was a nation now not very formidable, but one which had formerly enjoyed vast renown for its warlike genius and power, as its achievements prove, some of which were distinguished for the rapidity, as well as for the greatness, of their success; instances are:--Aquileia, which was besieged by them and the Marcomanni; Opitergium, which was destroyed by them, and many other bloody successes which were gained in that rapid campaign when the Julian Alps were passed, and that illustrious emperor Marcus, of whom we have already spoken, was hardly able to offer them any resistance. And indeed they had, for barbarians, just ground of complaint.
2. For Valentinian, who from the beginning of his reign had been full of a resolution to fortify his frontier, which was a glorious decision, but one carried too far in this case, ordered a fortress capable of containing a strong garrison to be constructed on the south side of the river Danube, in the very territories of the Quadi, as if they were subject to the Roman authority. The natives, being very indignant at this, and anxious for their own rights and safety, at first contented themselves with trying to avert the evil by an embassy and expostulations.
3. But Maximin, always eager for any wickedness, and unable to bridle his natural arrogance, which was now increased by the pride which he felt in his rank as prefect, reproached Equitius, who at that time was the commander of the forces in Illyricum, as careless and inactive, because the work, which it was ordered should be carried on with all speed, was not yet finished. And he added, as a man guided only by zeal for the common good, that if the rank of Duke of Valeria were only conferred on his own little son, Marcellianus, the fortification would be soon completed without any more pretexts for delay. Both his wishes were presently granted.
4. Marcellianus received the promotion thus suggested, and set out to take possession of his government; and when he reached it, being full of untimely arrogance, as might be expected from the son of such a father, without attempting to conciliate those whom false dreams of gain had caused to quit their native land, he applied himself to the work which had been recently begun, and had only been suspended to afford an opportunity for the inhabitants to present petitions against it.
5. Lastly, when their king Gabinius requested, in a most moderate tone, that no innovations might be made, he as if intending to assent to his petition, with feigned courtesy invited him and some other persons to a banquet; and then as he was departing after the entertainment, unsuspicious of treachery, he caused him, in infamous violation of the sacred rights of hospitality, to be murdered.
6. The report of so atrocious an act was speedily spread abroad, and roused the indignation of the Quadi and other surrounding tribes, who, bewailing the death of the king, collected together and sent forth predatory bands, which crossed the Danube; and when no hostilities were looked for, attacked the people who were occupied in the fields about the harvest; and having slain the greater portion of them, carried off all the survivors to their own country with a great booty of different kinds of cattle.
7. And at that time an inexpiable atrocity was very near being committed, which would have been reckoned among the most disgraceful disasters which ever happened to the Roman state, for the daughter of Constantius had a narrow escape of being taken prisoner as she was at dinner in a hotel called the Pistrensian, when on her way to be married to Gratian: and she was only saved by the promptitude of Messala the governor of the province, who, aided by the favour of the propitious Deity, placed her in a carriage belonging to him as governor, and conducted her back with all possible speed to Sirmium, a distance of about twenty-six miles.
8. By this fortunate chance the royal virgin was delivered from the peril of miserable slavery; and if she had been taken and her captors had refused to ransom her, it would have been the cause of terrible disasters to the republic. After this the Quadi in conjunction with the Sarmatians, extended their ravages further (since both these tribes were addicted beyond measure to plunder and robbery), carrying off, men, women, and cattle, and exulting in the ashes of burnt villas, and in the misery of the murdered inhabitants, whom they fell upon unexpectedly and slaughtered without mercy.
9. All the neighbouring districts were filled with apprehension of similar evils, and Probus, the prefect of the prætorium, who was at that time at Sirmium, a man wholly unexperienced in war, being panic-struck with the calamitous appearance of these new occurrences, and scarcely able to raise his eyes for fear, was for a long time wavering in doubt what to do. At first he prepared some swift horses and resolved to fly the next night; but afterwards, taking advice from some one who gave him safer counsel, he stayed where he was, but without doing anything.
10. For he had been assured that all those who were within the walls of the city would immediately follow him, with the intention of concealing themselves in suitable hiding-places; and if that had been done, the city, left without defenders, would have fallen into the hands of the enemy.
11. Presently, after his terror had been a little moderated, he applied himself with some activity to do what was most pressing; he cleared out the fosses which were choked up with ruins; he repaired the greater portion of the walls which, through the security engendered by a long peace, had been neglected, and had fallen into decay, and raised them again to the height of lofty towers, devoting himself zealously to the work of building. In this way the work was speedily completed, because he found that the sums which some time before had been collected for the erection of a theatre were sufficient for the purpose he was now pressing forward. And to this prudent measure he added another of like precaution, in summoning a cohort of archer cavalry from the nearest station, that it might be at hand to resist a siege should any take place.
12. By these barriers, as they may be called, the barbarians were forced to abandon their design of besieging the city, since they were not skilful in contests of this kind, and were also hampered by the burden of their booty; accordingly they turned aside to pursue Equitius. And when, from the information given them by their prisoners, they learnt that he had retired to the most remote part of Valeria, they hastened thither by forced marches, gnashing their teeth, and determined on his death, because they believed that it was through his means their innocent king had been circumvented.
13. And as they were hastening onwards with impetuous and vengeful speed, they were met by two legions, the Pannonian and the Moesian, both of approved valour, who, if they had acted in harmony, must unquestionably have come off victorious. But while they were hastening onward to attack the barbarians separately, a quarrel arose between them on the subject of their honour and dignity, which impeded all their operations.
14. And when intelligence of this dissension reached the Sarmatians, who are a most sagacious people, they, without waiting for any regular signal of battle, attacked the Moesians first; and while the soldiers, being surprised and in disorder, were slowly making ready their arms, many of them were killed; on which the barbarians with increased confidence attacked the Pannonians, and broke their line also; and when the line of battle was once disordered, they redoubled their efforts, and would have destroyed almost all of them, if some had not saved themselves from the danger of death by a precipitate flight.
15. Amid these calamitous inflictions of adverse fortune, Theodosius the younger, Duke of Moesia, then in the first bloom of youth, but afterwards a prince of the highest reputation, in many encounters defeated and vanquished the Free Sarmatians (so called to distinguish them from their rebellious slaves), who had invaded our frontier on the other side, till he exhausted them by his repeated victories; and with such vigour did he crush the assembled crowds combined to resist his arms, that he glutted the very birds and beasts with the blood of the vast numbers justly slain.
16. Those who remained having lost all their pride and spirit, fearing lest a general of such evident promptitude and courage should rout or destroy these invading battalions on the very edge of his frontier, or lay ambuscades for them in the recesses of the woods, made from time to time many vain attempts to escape, and at last, discarding all confidence in battle, they begged indulgence and pardon for their past hostility. And being thoroughly subdued, they did nothing for some time contrary to the treaty of peace, being more especially terrified because a strong force of Gallic soldiers had come to the defence of Illyricum.
17. While these events were agitating the empire, and while Claudius was prefect of the Eternal City, the Tiber, which intersects its walls, and which, after receiving the waters of many drains and copious streams, falls into the Tyrrhenian Sea, overflowed its banks, in consequence of an abundance of rain, and extending to a size beyond that of a river, overwhelmed almost everything with its flood.
18. All those parts of the city which lie in the plain were under water, and nothing reared its head above but the hills and other spots of rising ground, which seemed like islands, out of the reach of present danger. And, as the vastness of the inundation permitted of no departure in any direction to save the multitude from dying of famine, great quantities of provisions were brought in barges and boats. But when the bad weather abated, and the river which had burst its bounds returned to its accustomed channel, the citizens discarded all fear, and apprehended no inconvenience for the future.
19. Claudius, as a prefect, conducted himself very quietly, nor was any sedition in his time provoked by any real grievance. He also repaired many ancient buildings; and among his improvements he built a large colonnade contiguous to the bath of Agrippa, and gave it the name of The Colonnade of Success, because a temple bearing that title is close to it.
[176] For an account of this incantation, see Gibbon, Bohn's edition vol. iii., p. 75, note.
[177] The lines of Theognis are--
"Ἄνδρ’ ὀγαθον πενίη πάντων δάμνησι μάλιστα Καὶ γήρως πολιοῦ, Κύρνε, καὶ ἠπιάλου Ἣν δὴ χρὴ φεύγοντα καὶ ες μεγακήτεα ποντον Ῥίπτειν, καὶ πετρῶν Κύρνε, κατ’ ἠλιβάτων."
Which may be thus translated:--
"Want crushes a brave man far worse than age, O Cyrnus! or than fever's fiery rage; Flee, should thy flight beneath the greedy wave, Or from steep rocks but ope a milder grave."
[178] For the purposes of divination.
[179] This sentence is so mutilated as to be unintelligible, but is filled up by conjecture, founded on a knowledge of the facts, thus: "who was executed because he had not given up Octavian, who had been formerly proconsul of Africa, and who had taken refuge in his house when accused of some crime."
[180] The end of this chapter also is lost, as are one or two passages in the beginning of Chapter IV.
[181] Manuscript imperfect.
[182] The Dardanians were a Thracian tribe.