Res Gestae

Heraclitus the Ephesian[*](The weeping philosopher, as Democritus was the laughing philosopher; cf. Juvenal, x. 33 ff. He flourished about 535-475 B.C.) also agrees with this, when he reminds us that the weak and cowardly have sometimes, through the mutability of fortune, been victorious over eminent men; but that the most conspicuous praise is won,

Now, although this emperor in foreign wars met with loss and disaster, yet he was elated by his success in civil conflicts and drenched with awful gore from the internal wounds of the state. It was on this unworthy rather than just or usual ground[*](It was usual to celebrate a triumph only over foreign enemies, and the same rule applied to triumphal arches.) that in Gaul and Pannonia he erected triumphal arches[*](Although this term is so common in English, this is the first and only occurrence in Latin literature, and it is found besides only in four late inscriptions from northern Africa.) at great expense commemorating the ruin of the provinces,[*](That is, his victories over his rivals, and the bloodshed and ruin attending them.) and added records of his deeds, that men might read of him so long as those monuments could last.

He was to an excessive degree under the influence of his wives, and the shrill-voiced eunuchs, and certain of the court officials, who applauded his every word, and listened for his yes or no, in order to be able to agree with him.

The bitterness of the times was increased by the insatiate extortion of the tax-collectors, who brought him more hatred than money; and to many this seemed the more intolerable, for the reason that he never investigated a dispute, nor had regard for the welfare of the provinces, although they were oppressed by a multiplicity of taxes and tributes. And besides this, he found it easy to take away exemptions which he had once given.

The plain[*](Cf. absolutio, xiv. 10, 13; responsum absolutum, xxx. 1, 4; planis absolutisque decretis, xxii. 5, 2.) and simple religion of the Christians he obscured by a dotard’s superstition, and by subtle

His bodily appearance and form were as follows: he was rather dark, with bulging eyes and sharp-sighted; his hair was soft and his regularly shaven cheeks were neat and shining; from the meeting of neck and shoulders to the groin he was unusually long, and his legs were very short and bowed, for which reason he was good at running and leaping.

When the corpse of the deceased emperor had been washed and placed in a coffin, Jovianus, who was at that time still an officer in the bodyguard, was ordered to escort it with regal pomp to Constantinople, to be interred beside his kinsfolk.

And as he sat in the carriage that bore the remains, samples of the soldiers’ rations (probae, as they themselves call them) were presented to him, as they commonly are to emperors,[*](The emperors took pains to see that the soldiers were well fed. Cf. Spartianus, Hadr. 11, 1; Lampridius, Alex. Sev. xv. 5.) and the public courier-horses were shown to him, and the people thronged about him in the customary manner. These and similar things foretold imperial power for the said Jovianus, but of an empty and shadowy kind, since he was merely the director of a funeral procession.

While Fortune’s mutable phases were causing these occurrences in a different part of the world, Julian in the midst of his many occupations in Illyricum was constantly prying into the entrails of victims and watching the flight of birds, in his eagerness to foreknow the result of events; but he was perplexed by ambiguous and obscure predictions and continued to be uncertain of the future.

At length, however, Aprunculus, a Gallic orator skilled in soothsaying, afterwards advanced to be governor of Gallia Narbonensis, told him what would happen, having learned it (as he himself declared) from the inspection of a liver which he had seen covered with a double lobe.[*](Cf. Pliny, N.H. xi. 190; Suet. Aug. 96.) And although Julian feared that it might be a fiction conformable to his own desire, and was therefore troubled, he himself saw a much more evident sign which clearly foretold the death of Constantius. For at the very moment when that emperor died in Cilicia, a soldier who lifted Julian with his right hand to mount his horse slipped and fell to the ground; and Julian at once cried in the hearing of many: The man has fallen who raised me to my high estate.

But although he knew that these were favourable signs, yet as if standing fast upon his guard he remained within the confines of Dacia, and even so was troubled with many fears. For he

Amid this state of suspense the envoys Theolaifus and Aligildus, who had been sent to him,[*](Cf. xxi. 15, 4.) suddenly appeared and reported the death of Constantius, adding that with his last words he had made Julian the successor to his power.

On learning this, and being now saved from the fret of dangers and the throes of war’s anxieties, he was hugely elated. And now believing in the prophecies, and knowing by experience that speed had often been helpful to his enterprises, he ordered a march into Thrace, quickly broke camp, and passing the slope of Succi,[*](Cf. xxi. 10, 2.) made for Philippopolis,[*](See xxi. 10, 3, note.) the ancient Eumolpias, followed with eager step by all who were under his command.