Res Gestae

He was content with little sleep when time and circumstances so required. Throughout the entire span of his life he was so extraordinarily chaste, that not even a suspicion could be raised against him even by an ill-disposed attendant on his private life, a charge which malice, even if it fails to discover it, still trumps up, having regard to the unrestrained liberty of supreme power.

In riding, in hurling the javelin, and especially in the skilful use of the bow, and in all the exercises of the foot-soldiers, he was an adept. That no one ever saw him wipe his mouth or nose in public, or spit, or turn his face in either direction,[*](Cf. xvi. 10, 10.) or that so long as he lived he never tasted fruit, I leave unmentioned, since it has often been related.

Having given a succinct account of his merits, so far as I could know them, let us now come to an enumeration of his defects. While in administrative affairs he was comparable to other emperors of

To add to the sufferings of the wretches who were reported to him for impairment of, or insult to, his majesty, his bitterness and angry suspicions were stretched to the uttermost in all such cases. If anything of the kind was bruited abroad, he gave himself up to inquisitions with more eagerness than humanity, and appointed for such trials merciless judges; and in the punishment of some he tried to make their death lingering, if nature allowed, in some particulars being even more ruthless than Gallienus in such inquisitions.

As a matter of fact, he was the object of many genuine plots of traitors, such as Aureolus, Postumus, Ingenuus, Valens[*](In Illyricum, Gaul, Pannonia and Achaia respectively.) surnamed Thessalonicus, and several others, yet he often showed leniency in punishing crimes which would bring death to the victim; but he also tried to make false or doubtful cases appear well-founded by excessively violent tortures.

And in such affairs he showed deadly enmity to justice, although he made a special effort to be considered just and merciful. And as sparks flying from a dry forest even with a light breeze of wind come with irresistible course and bring danger to rural villages, so he also from trivial causes roused

And, as some right- thinking men believed, it would have been a striking indication of true worth in Constantius, if he had renounced his power without bloodshed, rather than defended it so mercilessly.

And this Tully also shows in a letter to Nepos, in which he taxes Caesar with cruelty, saying: For happiness is nothing else than success in noble actions. Or, to express it differently, happiness is the good fortune that aids worthy designs, and one who does not aim at these can in no wise be happy. Therefore, in lawless and impious plans, such as Caesar followed, there could be no happiness. Happier, in my judgement, was Camillus in exile than was Manlius[*](M. Manlius saved the Roman citadel when the Gauls took the city in 387 B.C. Later, because he defended the commons, he was accused of aspiring to regal power and hurled from the Tarpeian Rock.) at that same time, even if (as he had desired) he had succeeded in making himself king.[*](A fragment preserved by Ammianus alone, not found in Cicero’s extant works.)

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,