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).

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

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medium quality, if he found any indication, however slight or groundless, of an aspiration to the supreme power, by endless investigations, in which he made no distinction between right and wrong, he easily surpassed the savagery of Caligula, Domitian, and Commodus. For it was in rivalry of the cruelty of those emperors that at the beginning of his reign he destroyed root and branch all who were related to him by blood and race.

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

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up a mass of evils, unlike that revered prince Marcus,[*](Marcus Aurelius.) who, when Cassius had mounted to imperial heights in Syria, and a packet of letters sent by him to his accomplices had fallen into the emperor’s hands through the capture of their bearer, at once ordered it to be burned unopened, in order that, being at the time still in Illyricum, he might not know who were plotting against him, and hence be forced to hate some men against his will.[*](Cf. Dio, lxii. 26, 38.)

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.