Res Gestae

After this the next thing was to summon Caesar and induce him to make equal haste, and in order to remove suspicion, Constantius with many feigned endearments urged his sister, the Caesar’s wife, at last to satisfy his longing and visit him. And although she hesitated, through fear of her brother’s habitual cruelty, yet she set forth, hoping that, since he was her own brother, she might be able to pacify him. But after she had entered Bithynia, at the station called Caeni Gallicani, she was carried off by a sudden attack of fever. After her death the Caesar, considering that the support on which he thought he could rely had failed him, hesitated in anxious deliberation what to do.

For in the midst of his embarrassments and troubles his anxious mind dwelt on this one thought, that Constantius, who measured everything by the standard of his own opinion, was not one to accept any excuse or pardon mistakes; but, being especially inclined to the ruin of his kin, would secretly set a snare for him and punish him with death, if he caught him off his guard.

But in such a critical situation and anticipating the worst if he were not on the watch, he secretly aimed at the highest rank, if any chance should offer; but for a twofold reason he feared treachery on the part of those nearest to his person, both because they stood in dread of him as cruel and untrustworthy, and because they feared the fortune of Constantius which in civil discords usually had the upper hand.[*](Cf. ch. 10, 16, above.)

Amid this huge mass of anxieties he received constant letters from

To this he added an example of not so very great antiquity, that Diocletian and his colleague[*](Maximianus.) were obeyed by their Caesars as by attendants, who did not remain in one place but hastened about hither and thither, and that in Syria Galerius, clad in purple, walked for nearly a mile before the chariot of his Augustus[*](Diocletian.) when the latter was angry with him.

After many other messengers came Scudilo, tribune of the targeteers, a skilled artist in persuasion, under the cloak of a somewhat rough nature. He alone of all, by means of flattering words mingled with false oaths, succeeded in persuading Gallus to set out, constantly repeating with hypocritical expression that his cousin would ardently wish to see him, that being a mild and merciful prince he would overlook anything that was done through inadvertence; that he would make him a sharer in his rank, to be a partner also in the labours which the northern provinces, for a long time wearied, demanded.