Res Gestae

Finally the king was summoned by Caesar to an interview and reverenced him with trembling eyes; and overcome at the sight of the conqueror, he was forced to accept these hard terms, namely, that inasmuch as it was fitting that after so many successes the cities also should be rebuilt which the violence of the savages had destroyed, the king should furnish carts and timber from his own supplies and those of his subjects. And when he had promised this and taken oath that if he did any disloyal act, he should expiate it with his heart’s blood, he was allowed to return to his own domains. For as to supplying grain, as Suomarius did, he could not be coerced, for the reason that his country had been ravaged to the point of ruin, and nothing to give to us could be found.

So those kings, who in times past were inordinately puffed up with pride, and accustomed to

Presently, when all this became known at Constantius’ court—for it was necessary that Caesar, like any subordinate, should render an account to Augustus of all his acts—all those who had the chief influence in the palace and were now past masters in flattery turned Julian’s well-devised and successful achievements into mere mockery by endless silly jests of this sort: This fellow, a nanny-goat and no man, is getting insufferable with his victories, jibing at him for being hairy, and calling him a chattering mole and an ape in purple, and a Greekish pedant, and other names like these; and by ringing bells, so to speak, in the ears of an emperor eager to hear these and similar things, they tried to bury his merits with shameless speeches, railing at him as a lazy, timid, unpractical person, and one who embellished his ill success with fine words; all of which did not take place then for the first time.

For as the greatest glory is always habitually subject to envy,

As, for example, Cimon, the son of Miltiades, was accused of incest, although often before and particularly near the river Eurymedon in Pamphylia he annihilated a countless host of the Persians, and compelled a nation always swollen with pride to sue humbly for peace. Likewise Scipio Aemilianus was accused of inactivity by the malice of his rivals, although by his effective vigilance two most powerful cities, bent on the destruction of Rome, were razed to the ground.