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).

At that same time in Daphne, that charming and magnificent suburb of Antioch, a portent was born, horrible to see and to report: an infant,

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namely, with two heads, two sets of teeth, a beard, four eyes and two very small ears; and this misshapen birth foretold that the state was turning into a deformed condition.

Portents of this kind often see the light, as indications of the outcome of various affairs; but as they are not expiated by public rites, as they were in the time of our forefathers, they pass by unheard of and unknown.

In these days the Isaurians, who had long been quiet after the acts of which an account is given above[*](See xiv. 2, 1 ff.) and the attempted siege of the city of Seleucia, gradually coming to life again just as snakes are wont to dart forth from their holes in the spring time, sallying forth from their rocky and inaccessible mountain fastnesses, and massed together in dense bands, were harrying their neighbours with thefts and brigandage, eluding the frontier-defences of our soldiers by their skill as mountaineers and from experience easily running over rocks and through thickets.

In order to quiet them by force or by reason, Lauricius was sent as governor with the added rank of count; being a man skilled in statesmanship, he corrected many evils by threats rather than by actual severity, so that for a long time, while he governed the province, nothing occurred which was thought deserving of punishment.

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Such was the course of events throughout Illyricum and the Orient. But in Britain in the tenth consulship of Constantius and the third of Julian raids of the savage tribes of the Scots and the Picts, who had broken the peace that had been agreed upon, were laying waste the regions near the frontiers, so that fear seized the provincials, wearied as they were by a mass of past calamities. And Julian, who was passing the winter in Paris and was distracted amid many cares, was afraid to go to the aid of those across the sea, as Constans once did (as I have told),[*](In one of the lost books; it was in 343.) for fear of leaving Gaul without a ruler at a time when the Alamanni were already roused to rage and war.

Therefore he decided that Lupicinus,[*](Cf. xviii. 2, 7.) who was at that time

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commander-in-chief, should be sent to settle the troubles either by argument or by force; he was indeed a warlike man and skilled in military affairs, but one who raised his brows like horns[*](Cf. xvi. 10, 12, elatus in arduum supercilium. ) and ranted in the tragic buskin (as the saying is), and about whom men were long in doubt whether he was more covetous or more cruel.

Therefore, taking the light-armed auxiliaries, to wit the Aeruli,[*](A tribe of Gothic origin which settled in Gaul; associated with the Batavi also in xx, 4, 2; xxvii. 8, 7.) the Batavians, and two companies of Moesians, in the dead of winter the leader aforesaid came to Boulogne, and after procuring ships and embarking all his troops, he waited for a favourable breeze and then sailed to Richborough, which lay opposite, and went on to London, intending there to form his plans according to the situation of affairs and hasten quickly to take the field.

While this was going on, Ursicinus, after the storming of Amida, had returned to the emperor’s service as commander of the infantry; for, as I have said, he succeeded Barbatio.[*](See xviii. 5, 5.) There he was met by detractors, who at first spread whispered slanders, then openly added false charges.

These the emperor, since he judged most matters according to his prejudices and was ready to listen to secret attackers, took seriously and appointed Arbitio and Florentius,[*](Son of Nigrinianus; of. xv. 5, 12.) master of the offices, to investigate as judges the reasons for the destruction of Amida.

These

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men rejected the evident and plausible reasons, and fearing that Eusebius, then head chamberlain, would take offence if they admitted evidence which clearly showed that what had happened was the result of the persistent inaction of Sabinianus, they turned from the truth and examined into trivial matters far remote from the business in hand.

The accused, exasperated at this injustice, said: Although the emperor despises me, the importance of the present business is such, that it cannot be examined into and punished, except by the judgement of the prince; yet let him know, as if from the words of a seer, that so long as he grieves over what he has learned on no good authority to have happened at Amida, and so long as he is swayed by the will of eunuchs, not even he in person with all the flower of his army will be able next spring to prevent the dismemberment of Mesopotania.

When this had been reported and much had been added in a malicious light, Constantius was angered beyond measure; and without sifting the matter or allowing the details of which he was ignorant to be explained, he ordered the victim of the calumnies to give up his command in the army and go into retirement. And by an extraordinary advancement Agilo, a former tribune of the household troops and of the targeteers,[*](See xiv. 7, 9, note 3.) was promoted to his place.