Res Gestae

As for the second Lyonnese province, Rouen and Tours make it distinguished, as well as Evreux and Troyes. The Graian and Pennine Alps, not counting towns of lesser note, have Avenche, a city now abandoned, to be sure, but once of no slight importance, as is even yet evident from its half-ruined buildings. These are the goodly provinces and cities of Gaul.

In Aquitania, which trends towards the Pyrenees mountains and that part of the Ocean which extends

The Nine Nations[*](The country between the Garonne and the Pyrenees, Aquitania in the narrower sense. The names of the nine nations are not known.) are ennobled by Auch and Bazas. In the Narbonese province Eauze, Narbonne, and Toulouse hold the primacy among the cities. The Viennese province rejoices in the distinction conferred by many cities, of which the most important are Vienne itself, Aries and Valence; and joined to these is Marseilles, by whose alliance and power we read that Rome was several times supported in severe crises.

Near these are Aix-en-Provence, Nice, Antibes, and the Isles d’Hyères.

And since we have reached these parts in the course of our work, it would be unfitting and absurd to say nothing of the Rhone, a river of the greatest celebrity. Rising in the Pennine Alps from a plenteous store of springs, the Rhone flows in headlong course towards more level places. It hides its banks with its own stream[*](That is, it receives no tributaries, yet fills its channel full.) and bursts into the lagoon called Lake Leman. This it flows through, nowhere mingling with the water outside, but gliding along the surface of the less active water on either hand, it seeks an outlet and forces a way for itself by its swift onset.

From there without any loss of volume it flows through[*](Really between. ) Savoy and the Seine Province,[*](Maxima Sequanorum.) and, after going on for a long distance, it grazes the Viennese Province on the left side and the Lyonnese on the right side. Next, after describing many meanders, it receives the Arar,

After this the Rhone, enriched by the tributary waters of the Isère, carries very large craft, which are frequently wont to be tossed by gales of wind, and having finished the bounds which nature has set for it, its foaming waters are mingled with the Gallic Sea through a broad bay which they call Ad Gradus[*](The Gulf of Lyons; of. Grau-du-Roi.) at about the eighteenth milestone distant from Arles. Let this suffice for the topography of the region; I shall now describe the appearance and manners of its people.

Almost all the Gauls are of tall stature, fair and ruddy, terrible for the fierceness of their eyes, fond of quarrelling, and of overbearing insolence. In fact, a whole band of foreigners will be unable to cope with one of them in a fight, if he call in his wife, stronger than he by far and with flashing eyes; least of all when she swells her neck and gnashes her teeth, and poising her huge white arms, proceeds to rain punches mingled with kicks, like shots discharged by the twisted cords of a catapult.

The voices of most of them are formidable and threatening, alike when they are good-natured or angry. But all of them with equal care keep clean and neat, and in those districts, particularly in Aquitania, no man or woman can be seen, be she never

All ages are most fit for military service, and the old man marches out on a campaign with a courage equal to that of the man in the prime of life; since his limbs are toughened by cold and constant toil, and he will make light of many formidable dangers. Nor does anyone of them, for dread of the service of Mars, cut off his thumb, as in Italy[*](Cf. Suet., Aug. 24, 1.) : there they call such men murci, or cowards.

It is a race greedy for wine, devising numerous drinks similar to wine, and some among them of the baser sort, with wits dulled by continual drunkenness (which Cato’s saying pronounced a voluntary kind of madness) rush about in aimless revels, so that those words seem true which Cicero spoke when defending Fonteius[*](Ammianus is the only source for these words.) : The Gauls henceforth will drink wine mixed with water, which they once thought poison.

These regions, and especially those bordering on Italy, came gradually and with slight effort under the dominion of Rome; they were first essayed by Fulvius,[*](M. Fulvius Flaccus; see Index and cf. Livy, Periochae, lx. and lxi.) then undermined in petty battles by Sextius,[*](C. Sextius Calvinus; see Index and cf. Livy, Periocha, lxi.) and finally subdued by Fabius Maximus,[*](In 121 B.C.) on whom the full completion of this business (when he had vanquished the formidable tribe of the Allobroges)[*](In 121 B.C.) conferred that surname.[*](Allobrogicus.)

Now the whole of Gaul (except where, as the authority of Sallust[*](Hist.i. 11, Maurenbrecher.) informs us, it was impassable with marshes), after losses on both sides during ten years of war the dictator Caesar subdued and joined to us in an

After Domitianus was dispatched by a cruel death,[*](Cf. xiv. 7, 16.) his successor Musonianus governed the East with the rank of pretorian prefect, a man famed for his command of both languages,[*](Greek and Latin; cf. Suet., Claud. 42, l.) from which he won higher distinction than was expected.

For when Constantine was closely investigating the different religious sects, Manichaeans and the like, and no suitable interpreter could be found, he chose him, as a person recommended to him as competent; and when he had done that duty skilfully, he wished him to be called Musonianus, whereas he had hitherto had the name of Strategius. From that beginning, having run through many grades of honour, he rose to the prefecture, a man intelligent in other respects and satisfactory to the provinces, mild also and well-spoken, but on any and every occasion, and especially (which is odious) in hard-fought lawsuits and under all circumstances greedily bent upon filthy lucre. This became clearly evident (among many other instances) in the investigations set on foot regarding the death of Theophilus, governor of Syria, who, because of the betrayal of Gallus Caesar, was torn to pieces in an onslaught of the rabble upon him; on which occasion sundry poor men were condemned, although it was known that they had been away when this happened, while the wealthy perpetrators of the foul crime were set free after being stripped of their property.

He was matched by Prosper, who was at that time still representing the cavalry commander[*](Ursicinus (see xiv. 11, 5).) in Gaul and held military authority there, an abject coward and, as the comic poet says,[*](Plautus, Epidicus, 12, minus iam furtificus sum quam antehac. Quid ita? Rapio propalam.) scorning artifice in thieving and plundering openly.

While these men were in league and enriching themselves by bringing mutual gain one to the other, the Persian generals stationed by the rivers, while their king was busied in the farthest bounds of his empire, kept raiding our territories with predatory bands, now fearlessly invading Armenia and sometimes Mesopotamia, while the Roman officers were occupied in gathering the spoils of those who paid them obedience.

While the linked course of the fates was bringing this to pass in the Roman world, Julian Caesar at Vienne was admitted by Augustus,[*](That is, Constantius Augustus.) then consul for the eighth time, into the fellowship of the consular fasti. Urged on by his native energy, he dreamed of the din of battle and the slaughter of savages, already preparing to gather up the broken fragments of the province, if only fortune should at last aid him with her favouring breeze.

Accordingly, since the great deeds that he had the courage and good fortune to perform in Gaul surpass many valiant achievements of the ancients, I shall describe them one by one in progressive order,

Now whatever I shall tell (and no wordy deceit adorns my tale, but untrammelled faithfulness to fact, based upon clear proofs, composes it) will almost belong to the domain of the panegyric.