Res Gestae

Likewise from the immortal poems of Homer[*](Perhaps Iliad, i. 503 ff.) we are given to understand that it was not the gods of heaven that spoke with brave men, and stood by them or aided them as they fought, but that guardian spirits attended them; and through reliance upon their special support, it is said, that Pythagoras, Socrates, and Numa Pompilius[*](Referring to the nymph Egeria; cf. Livy, i. 19, 5.) became famous; also the earlier Scipio,[*](Africanus, the conqueror of Hannibal.) and (as some believe) Marius and Octavianus, who first had the title of Augustus conferred upon him, and Hermes Trismegistus,[*](A surname of the Egyptian Hermes. Here the refer- ence is apparently to a writer of the second century, who under that name tried to revive the old Egyptian, Pythagorean, and Platonic ideas.) Apollonius of Tyana,[*](The famous magician of the first century B.C., whose biography was written by Philostratus.) and Plotinus,[*](An eclectic philosopher of the third century, whose views entitled τερὶ τοῦ εἰληχότος ἡμᾶς δαίμονος have come down to us (Plot. En., iii, 4).) who ventured to discourse on this mystic theme, and to present a profound discussion of the question by what elements these spirits are linked with men’s souls, and taking them to their bosoms, as it were, protect them (as long as possible) and give them higher instruction, if they perceive that they are pure and kept from the pollution of sin through association with an immaculate body.

Constantius, therefore, having reached Antiochia by forced marches, intending (as was his custom)

When autumn was already waning he began his march, and on coming to a suburban estate called Hippocephalus, distant three miles from the city, he saw in broad daylight on the right side of the road the corpse of a man with head torn off, lying stretched out towards the west.[*](The omen seems to consist, in part at least, in the position of the body, stretched out towards the setting) Terrified by the omen, although the fates were preparing his end, he kept on with the greater determination and arrived at Tarsus. There he was taken with a slight fever, but in the expectation of being able to throw off the danger of his illness by the motion of the journey he kept on over difficult roads to Mobsucrenae, the last station of Cilicia as you go from here, situated at the foot of Mount Taurus; but when he tried to start again on the following day, he was detained by the increasing severity of the disease. Gradually the extreme heat of the fever so inflamed his veins that his body could not even be touched, since it burned like a furnace; and when the application of remedies proved useless, as he breathed his last he lamented his end. However, while his mind was still unimpaired he is said to have designated Julian as the successor to the throne.

Then the death-rattle began and he was silent, and after a long struggle with life now about to leave him, he died on the fifth of October, in the

After this followed the last mournful call to the deceased,[*](The conclamatio was a regular custom, for the purpose of seeing whether any life was left; cf. xxx. 10, 1.) and grief and wailing broke out; then those who held the first rank in the royal court considered what they should do, or what they ought to attempt. And after a few had been sounded secretly as to the choice of an emperor, at the suggestion of Eusebius (as was reported), whom the consciousness of his guilt pricked, since Julian’s nearness made an attempt at revolution inadvisable, Theolaifus and Aligildus,[*](Cf. xxii. 2, 1.) at that time counts, were sent to him, to report the death of his kinsman, and beg him to lay aside all delay and come to take over the Orient, which was ready to obey him.