Res Gestae

To this prince Ormisda, who was standing near him, and whose departure from Persia I have described above,[*](In 323 (Zosimus, ii. 27); hence in one of the lost books of Ammianus.) replied with native wit: First, Sire, said he, command a like stable to be built, if you can; let the steed which you propose to create range as widely as this which we see. When Ormisda was asked directly what he thought of Rome, he said that he took comfort[*](Valesius read displicuisse, and was followed by Gibbon. Robert Heron (pseudonym of John Pinkerton) in Letters of Literature (London, 1789), xii., p. 68, discusses this remark at some length, disagreeing with Gibbon. He thinks that the prince’s envy at the pleasures of the inhabitants of Rome could only be moderated by the reflection that their pleasures were transitory. )

in this fact alone, that he had learned that even there men were mortal.