Res Gestae

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.

And now after this relief the usual trials were set on foot, and many men were punished with bonds and chains, as malefactors. For up rose that diabolical informer Paulus, bubbling over with joy, to begin practising his venomous arts more freely; and when the councillors and officers (as was ordered) inquired into the matter, Proculus, Silvanus’ adjutant, was put upon the rack. Since he was a puny and sickly man, every one feared that his slight frame would yield to excessive torture, and that he would cause many persons of all conditions to be accused of heinous crimes. But the result was not at all what was expected.

For mindful of a dream, in which he was forbidden while asleep, as he himself declared, to strike a certain innocent person, although tortured to the very brink of death, he neither named nor impeached anyone, but steadfastly defended the action of Silvanus, proving by credible evidence that he had attempted his enterprise, not driven on from ambition, but compelled by necessity.

For he brought forward a convincing reason, made clear by the testimony of many persons, namely, that four days before Silvanus assumed

After him Poemenius, doomed like evil doers, was haled to execution and perished; he was the man (as we have told above)[*](In one of the lost books.) who was chosen to protect his fellow-citizens when Treves closed its gates against Decentius Caesar.[*](Decentius had been given the rank of Caesar by his brother Magnentius.) Then the counts Asclepiodotus, Lutto and Maudio were put to death, and many others, since the obduracy of the times made an intricate investigation into these and similar charges.