Res Gestae

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.