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).

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

v2.p.7

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.

At that same time, throughout the regions of the East the heaven was seen to be overcast with

v2.p.9

dark mist, through which the stars were visible continually from the first break of day until noon. It was an additional cause of terror when the light of heaven was hidden and its orb removed utterly from the sight of the world, that the timorous minds of men thought that the darkening of the sun lasted too long;[*](I.e. that the sun had disappeared for good and all.) but it thinned out at first into the form of the crescent moon, then growing to the shape of the half-moon, and was finally fully restored.

This phenomenon never takes place so clearly as when the moon, after its shifting courses,[*](See note 2, p. 10, § 4, below.) brings back its monthly journey to the same starting-point after fixed intervals of time; that is to say, when the entire moon,[*](I.e. the full moon; cf. § 7, below.) in the abode of the same sign of the zodiac, is found in a perfectly straight line directly under the sun, and for a brief time stands still in the minute points which the science of geometry calls parts of parts.[*](I.e. parts of degrees, or minutes; cf. Pliny, N.H. ii. 48, scripulis partium. )

And although the revolutions and movements of both heavenly bodies, as the searchers[*](The natural philosophers.) for intelligible causes had observed, after the course of the moon is completed,[*](At the end of each lunar month.) meet at one and the same point always at the same distance from each other,[*](I.e. are in conjunction.) yet the sun is not always eclipsed at such times, but only when the moon (by a kind of fiery plumb-line)[*](According to Clark’s punctuation, based upon metrical clausulae (Introd., p. xxii); but igneo seems to be more naturally taken with orbi. ) is directly opposite the sun and interposed between its orb and our vision.