Res Gestae
Ammianus Marcellinus
Ammianus Marcellinus. Ammianus Marcellinus, with an English translation, Vols. I-III. Rolfe, John C., translator. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; W. Heinemann, 1935-1940 (printing).
These and similar actions kept growing more and more common, for the reason that Constantius, who was excessively timid and fearful for his life, always anticipated that a knife was at his throat, like that famous Sicilian despot, Dionysius, who because
These trumpet-blasts of internal revolt[*](I.e. signs of coming disturbances in the state.) were likewise increased by powerful courtiers, to the end that they might lay claim to the property of condemned persons and incorporate it with their own, and thus have the means of encroaching widely on their neighbours.
For as clear proofs bore witness, the first of all to open the jaws of those nearest to him was Constantine, but it was Constantius who fattened them with the marrow of the provinces.
For under him the leading men of every rank were inflamed with a boundless eagerness for riches, without consideration for justice or right; among the civil functionaries first came Rufinus, the praetorian prefect; among the military, Arbetio, master of the horse, and the head-chamberlain Eusebius, . . . anus,[*](Only the ending of the name has been preserved.) the quaestor, and in Rome itself the members of the Anician family, whose younger generation, striving to outdo their forefathers, could never be satisfied with even much greater possessions.