Res Gestae
Ammianus Marcellinus
Ammianus Marcellinus. Ammianus Marcellinus, with an English translation, Vols. I-III. Rolfe, John C., translator. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; W. Heinemann, 1935-1940 (printing).
By this untimely death, although himself weary of his existence, the Caesar passed from life in the twenty-ninth year of his age, after a rule of four years. He was born in Etruria at Massa in the district of Veternum, being the son of Constantius, the brother of the emperor Constantine, and Galla, the sister of Rufinus and Cerealis, who were distinguished by the
He was conspicuous for his handsome person, being well proportioned, with well-knit limbs. He had soft golden hair, and although his beard was just appearing in the form of tender down, yet he was conspicuous for the dignity of greater maturity. But he differed as much from the disciplined character of his brother Julian as did Domitian, son of Vespasian, from his brother Titus.
Raised to the highest rank in Fortune’s gift, he experienced her fickle changes, which make sport of mortals, now lifting some to the stars, now plunging them in the depths of Cocytus. But although instances of this are innumerable, I shall make cursory mention of only a few.
It was this mutable and fickle Fortune that changed the Sicilian Agathocles from a potter to a king, and Dionysius, once the terror of nations, to the head of an elementary school, at Corinth.