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).

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

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eagerly to encounter civil disturbances at their outset, and having made all his preparations, was in immoderate haste to set out, although many opposed it, but only by murmurs; for no one dared openly to dissuade or to forbid him.

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

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thirty-eighth year of his reign at the age of forty- four years and a few months.[*](October 5, 361. He was forty-five years old and had reigned twenty-five years, since the death of his father; thirty-eight years includes his term of office as Caesar.)

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.

However, rumour and an uncertain report had it that Constantius had made a last will, in which (as I have said) he wrote down Julian as his heir and gave commissions and legacies to those who were dear to him.