After the survival of the events of an unendurable campaign,Against Magnentius, who in 350 had assumed the rank of an Augustus in the west, with Veteranio; but was defeated, in 351, by Constantius at Mursa, on the river Drave, a tributary of the Danube and in the passes of the Cottian Alps in 353. His followers then abandoned him and he committed suicide. See Index. when the spirits of both parties, broken by the variety of their dangers and hardships, were still drooping, before the blare of the trumpets had ceased or the soldiers been assigned to their winter quarters, the gusts of raging Fortune brought new storms upon the commonwealth through the misdeeds, many and notorious, of Gallus Caesar.The title of Augustus was lawfully held only by the reigning emperor, or emperors. Caesar was the title next in rank and was conferred by the emperor on one or more of the imperial family; see Introd. p. xxiv. He had been raised, at the very beginning of mature manhood, by an unexpected promotion from the utmost depths of wretchedness to princely heights, and overstepping the bounds of the authority conferred upon him, by excess of violence was causing trouble everywhere. For by his relationship to the imperial stock, and the affinity which he even then had with the name of Constantius,He was married to Constantia, daughter of Constantine the Great and Fausta, wrongly called Constantina, XIV. 7, 4, etc. he was raised to such a height of presumption that, if he had been more powerful, he would have ventured (it seemed) upon a course hostile to the author of his good fortune.

To his cruelty his wife was besides a serious incentive, a woman beyond measure presumptuous because of her kinship to the emperor, and previously joined in marriage by her father Constantine with his brother’s son, King Hanniballianus.Constantine had given him the rule of Pontus, Armenia Minor, and Cappadocia, but Constantius II., soon after his accession, had caused his assassination. She, a MegaeraOne of the Furies. in mortal guise, constantly aroused the savagery of Gallus, being as insatiable as he in her thirst for human blood. The pair in process of time gradually became more expert in doing harm, and through underhand and crafty eavesdroppers, who had the evil habit of lightly adding to their information and wanting to learn only what was false and agreeable to them, they fastened upon innocent victims false charges of aspiring to royal power or of practising magic.