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).

At first they banished to Britain Palladius, formerly chief marshal of the court, who was brought before them merely on the suspicion of having made certain charges to Constantius against Gallus, when he held the same office under the said Gallus, who was at the time Caesar.

Then Taurus,[*](xxi. 6, 5.) who had been praetorian prefect, was exiled to Vercellum,[*](Perhaps for Vercellae.) although before judges who could distinguish justice from injustice his action might have appeared deserving of pardon. For what sin did he commit, if in fear of a storm that had arisen he fled to the protection of his emperor? And the decisions that were passed upon him were read not without great horror in the public protocol, which contained this beginning: In the consulate of Taurus and Florentius, when Taurus was summoned to court by the criers.

Pentadius also was threatened with the same fate, against whom the charge was made, that, being sent by Constantius he took down in shorthand the answers that Gallus had made to the many questions put to him when his ruin was approaching. But since he justified himself, he finally got off unpunished.

With like injustice Florentius (son of Nigrinianus), then chief marshal of the court, was imprisoned in[*](Lit. thrust off to. ) the

v2.p.195
Dalmatian island of Boae.[*](Modern Bua.) For a second Florentius,[*](Cf. xx. 8, 20.) a former praetorian prefect and consul at the time, being alarmed by the sudden change in the state, saved himself from danger with his wife, lay hid for a long time, and could not return until after the death of Julian; yet he was condemned to death in his absence.

In like manner Euagrius, count of the privy purse, and Saturninus, former steward of the Household, and Cyrinus, a former secretary, were all exiled. But for the death of Ursulus, count of the sacred largesses, Justice herself seems to me to have wept, and to have accused the emperor of ingratitude. For when Julian was sent as Caesar to the western regions, to be treated with extreme niggardliness, being granted no power of making any donative to the soldiers to the end that he might be exposed to more serious mutinies of the army, this very Ursulus wrote to the man in charge of the Gallic treasury, ordering that whatever the Caesar asked for should be given him without hesitation.