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).

But in the midst of the slaughter and pillage of the destroyed city Count Aelianus and the tribunes, by whose efficient service the walls had been so long defended and the losses of the Persians increased, were shamefully gibbeted; Jacobus and Caesius, paymasters of the commander of the cavalry, and other officers of the bodyguard, were led off with their hands bound behind their backs; and those who had come from across the Tigris[*](I.e. Persian deserters.) were hunted down with extreme care and butchered to a man, highest and lowest without distinction.

But the wife of Craugasius, who retained her chastity inviolate and was honoured as a woman of rank, grieved that she was likely to see another part of the world without her husband, although from present indications she had reason to hope for a loftier fortune.

Therefore, looking out for her own interests and foreseeing long beforehand what would happen, she was tormented by

v1.p.517
two-fold anxiety, dreading both separation from her husband and marriage with another. Accordingly, she secretly sent a slave of hers, who was of tried fidelity and acquainted with the regions of Mesopotamia, to go over Mount Izala between the strongholds of Maride and Lorne to Nisibis, and take a message to her husband and certain tokens of their more private life, begging him that on hearing what had happened he should come to live happily with her.

When this had been arranged, the messenger, being lightly equipped, made his way with quick pace through forest paths and thickets and entered Nisibis. There giving out that he had seen his mistress nowhere, that she was perhaps slain, and that he himself, taking advantage of an opportunity to escape, had fled from the enemy’s camp, he was accordingly disregarded as of no consequence. Thereupon he told Craugasius what had happened and then, after receiving assurance that if it could safely be done he would gladly follow his wife, the messenger departed, bearing to the woman the desired news. She on hearing it begged the king through his general Tamsapor that, if the opportunity offered before he left the Roman territory, he would graciously give orders that her husband be received under his protection.