Res Gestae

Accordingly, after a many-sided debate, this point was chiefly discussed, namely, by what device Silvanus might be led to think that the emperor even then had no knowledge of his action. And they invented a plausible means of strengthening his confidence, advising him in a complimentary letter to receive Ursicinus as his successor and return with his dignities unimpaired.

After this had been thus settled, Ursicinus was ordered to set forth at once, accompanied (as he had requested) by some tribunes and ten of the body-guard, to assist the exigencies of the state. Among these I myself was one, with my colleague Verinianus; all the rest were relatives

And when he left, each of us attended him for a long distance in fear only for our own safety. But although we were, like gladiators,[*](The bestiarii were matched against wild beasts.) cast before ravening wild beasts, yet reflecting that melancholy events after all have this good sequel, that they give way to good fortune, we admired that saying of Tully’s, delivered even from the inmost depths of truth itself, which runs as follows: And although it is most desirable that our fortune always remain wholly favourable, yet that evenness of life does not give so great a sense of satisfaction as when, after wretchedness and disaster, fortune is recalled to a better estate.[*](This passage does not occur in Cicero’s extant works. A similar one appears in Ad Quir. post Reditum, i. 2.)

Accordingly, we hastened by forced marches, since the commander-in-chief of the army, in his zeal, wished to appear in the suspected districts before any report of the usurpation had made its way into Italy. But for all our running haste, Rumour had flown before us by some aerial path and revealed our coming; and on arriving at Cologne we found everything above our reach.

For since a great crowd assembled from all sides gave a firm foundation to the enterprise so timidly begun, and large forces had been mustered, it seemed, in view of the state of affairs, more fitting that our general[*](Ursicinus.) should complaisantly favour the upstart[*](Novelli is contemptuous; cf. xxvi. 6, 15.) emperor’s purpose and desire to be strengthened in the growth of his power by deceptive omens; to the end that by means of manifold devices of flattery his feeling

But the issue of this project seemed difficult; for special care had to be observed that the onsets should take advantage of the right moment, neither anticipating it nor falling short of it. Since if they should break out prematurely, we were all sure to suffer death under a single sentence.

However, our general, being kindly received and forcing himself-since our very commission bent our necks-formally to reverence the high-aiming wearer of the purple, was welcomed as a distinguished and intimate friend. In freedom of access and honourable place at the royal table he was so preferred to others that he came to be confidentially consulted about the most important affairs.

Silvanus took it ill that while unworthy men were raised to the consulship and to high positions, he and Ursicinus alone, after having toiled through such heavy and repeated tasks for the government, had been so scorned that he himself had been cruelly harassed in an unworthy controversy through the examination of friends of his, and summoned to trial for treason, while Ursicinus, haled back from the East, was delivered over to the hatred of his enemies; and these continual complaints he made both covertly and openly.

We however were alarmed, in spite of these and similar speeches, at the uproarious complaints of the soldiers on every hand, pleading their destitution and eager to burst through the passes of the Cottian Alps[*](In order to march to Italy against Constantius himself.) with all speed.

Amid this perplexing distress of spirit we kept casting about in secret investigation for some plan

Accordingly, the matter was arranged through some common soldiers as go-betweens, men who through their very inconspicuousness were suited to accomplish it; and just as sunrise was reddening the sky, a sudden group of armed men, fired by the expectation of rewards, burst forth; and as usually happens in critical moments, made bolder by slaying the sentinels, they forced their way into the palace, dragged Silvanus from a chapel where he had in breathless fear taken refuge, while on his way to the celebration of a Christian service, and butchered him with repeated sword-thrusts.

So fell by this manner of death a general of no slight merits, who through fear due to the slanders in which he was ensnared during his absence by a clique of his enemies, in order to save his life had resorted to the uttermost measures of defence.

For although he held Constantius under obligation through gratitude for that timely act of coming over to his side with his soldiers before the battle of Mursa,[*](Against Magnentius; see note 2, p. 3.) yet he feared him as variable and uncertain, although he could point also to the valiant deeds of his father Bonitus, a Frank it is true, but one who in the civil war often fought vigorously on the side of Constantine against the soldiers of Licinius.

Now it had happened that before

Accordingly, when Silvanus had been slain at Cologne, as has been related, the emperor learned of it with inconceivable joy, and swollen with vanity and pride, ascribed this also to the prosperous course of his own good fortune, in accordance with the way in which he always hated brave and energetic men, as Domitian did in times gone by, yet tried to overcome them by every possible scheme of opposition.

And so far was he from praising conscientious service, that he actually wrote that Ursicinus had embezzled funds from the Gallic treasury, which no one had touched. And he had ordered the matter to be closely examined, questioning Remigius, who at that time was already auditor of the general’s office of infantry supplies, and whose fate it was, long afterwards, in the days of Valentinian, to take his life with the halter because of the affair of the embassy from Tripoli.[*](Cf. xxviii. 6, 7 and xxx. 2, 9.)

After this turn of affairs, Constantius, as one that now touched the skies with his head and would control all human chances, was puffed up by the grandiloquence of his flatterers, whose number he himself increased by scorning and rejecting those who were not adepts in that line; as we read of Croesus,[*](Cf. Herodotus, i. 33.) that he drove Solon headlong out of his kingdom for the reason that he did not know how to flatter; and of Dionysius, that he threatened the poet Philoxenus[*](Cf. Diod. Sic. xv. 6, and see Index.) with death, because when the tyrant was reading aloud

But this fault is a pernicious nurse of vices. For praise ought to be acceptable in high places only when opportunity is also sometimes given for reproach of things ill done.