Res Gestae

And to the end that a sound course of conduct may be maintained, that the rewards of brave men may remain free from corruption, and that secret intrigue may not usurp honours, this I declare in the presence of your honorable assembly: that no civil official, no military officer, shall reach a higher rank through anyone supporting him beyond his merits, and that none who tries to intrigue for another shall escape without dishonour.

Through confidence in this promise the soldiers of lower rank, who had long had no share in honours

And at once, lest even an instant should be allowed to interfere with so resolved a purpose, the Petulantes and Celts begged in behalf of certain commissaries[*](Officers of the army, who received the provisions from the contractors and delivered them to the soilders; and kept the accounts; see also xv. 5, 3, note.) that they might be sent as governors to whatever provinces they might choose; and when the request was denied, they withdrew neither offended nor ill-humoured.

But in the night before he was proclaimed Augustus, as the emperor told his nearer and more intimate friends, a vision appeared to him in his sleep, taking the form in which the guardian spirit of the state is usually portrayed, and in a tone of reproach spoke as follows: Long since, Julian, have I been secretly watching the vestibule of your house, desiring to increase your rank, and I have often gone away as though rebuffed. If I am not to be received even now, when the judgements of many men are in agreement, I shall depart downcast and forlorn. But keep this thought in the depths of your heart, that I shall no longer abide with you.

While these things were being vigorously carried out in Gaul, that savage king of the Persians, since the urgency of Antoninus was doubled by the coming