Res Gestae

For when a great throng of ostlers, in order to get fodder as usual, had taken their place near a very high stack of chaff (such as are commonly constructed in that country), since many at once laid hold on what they wanted, the heap was broken and gave way, and fifty men at once met death by being buried under the huge mass that fell upon them.

Departing from there in sorrow, by a forced march he came to Carrae, an ancient town, notorious for the disaster of the Crassi and the Roman army.[*](Marcus Crassus, the triumvir, and his son Publius in 53 B.C.; cf. Florus, i. 46, 11, etc.) From there two different royal highways lead to Persia: the one on the left through Adiabene and over the Tigris; the other, on the right, through

Having delayed there several days for necessary preparations, and to offer sacrifices according to the native rites to the Moon, which is religiously venerated in that region, before the altar, with no witness present, Julian is said secretly to have handed his purple mantle to his relative Procopius, and to have ordered him boldly to assume the rule, if he learned that the emperor had died among the Parthians.

Here, as Julian slept, his mind was disturbed by dreams, which made him think that some sorrow would come to him. Therefore, both he himself and the interpreters of dreams, considering the present conditions, declared that the following day, which was the nineteenth of March, ought to be carefully watched. But, as was afterwards learned, it was on that same night that the temple of the Palatine Apollo, under the prefecture of Apronianus, was burned in the eternal city; and if it had not been for the employment of every possible help, the Cumaean books[*](These Sibylline books had been kept in the pedestal of the statue of Apollo, in accordance with the desire of Augustus, who built the temple. See Suet., Aug. xxxi. 1 (L.C.L., i. 170).) also would have been destroyed by the raging flames.

After these matters were thus arranged, just as Julian was busy with the army and in getting supplies of every kind, it was reported to him by scouts who arrived in breathless haste, that some bands of the enemy’s horsemen had suddenly broken through a part of the neighbouring frontier and carried off booty.

Startled by this cruel disaster, Julian (as he had previously planned) instantly put 30,000 picked men under the command of the

After these arrangements had thus been made, he himself feigned a march across the Tigris, an expedition for which he had also ordered supplies to be carefully prepared, but then turned to the right and, after passing a quiet night, called next morning for the mount which he usually rode. And when the horse, called Babylonius, was brought to him, it was laid low by a missile from the artillery, and as it rolled on the ground in unbearable pain, it scattered about its ornaments, which were adorned with gold and precious stones. Delighted by this omen, Julian cried out amid expressions of joy from the bystanders, that Babylon had fallen to the ground, stripped of all its adornments.