Res Gestae

Such great haste was made, even though attended with the destruction of the provinces, that this valiant warrior should not receive mention as author of, or participant in, any noteworthy action. Therefore, alarmed by this unhappy situation, Ursicinus often sent us scouts, although because of the strict guard no one could easily enter the town, and attempted many helpful things; but he obviously could accomplish nothing, being like a lion of huge size and terrible fierceness which did not dare to go to save from danger his whelps that were caught in a net, because he had been robbed of his claws and teeth.

But within the city, where the quantity of corpses scattered through the streets was too great to admit of burial, a plague was added to so many ills, fostered by the contagious infection of maggotin-fested bodies, the steaming heat, and the weakness of the populace from various causes. The origin of diseases of this kind I shall briefly set forth.

Philosophers and eminent physicians have told us that an excess of cold or heat, or of moisture or dryness, produces plagues. Hence those who dwell in marshy or damp places suffer from coughs, from affections of the eyes, and from similar complaints; on the other hand, the inhabitants of hot climates dry up with the heat of fever. But by as much as the substance of fire is fiercer and more effective than the other elements, by so much is drought the swifter to kill.

Therefore when Greece was toiling in a ten years’ war in order that a foreigner[*](Paris, the cause of the Trojan War.) might not evade the penalty for separating a royal pair, a scourge of this kind raged and many men perished by the darts of Apollo,[*](See Iliad, i. 9 ff. and 43 ff. Apollo was angry because the request of his priest was denied. Ammianus rationalizes the myth, attributing the pestilence to the heat of the sun, and likening its rays to the arrows of the god.) who is regarded as the sun.