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).

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

v2.p.5

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.