Res Gestae

After having received the auxiliaries of the Saracens, which they offered him with great willingness, the emperor marched at quick step to Cercusium, a very safe and skilfully built fortress,

This place, which was formerly small and exposed to danger, Diocletian, alarmed by a recent experience,[*](Detailed in § 3.) encircled with walls and lofty towers, at the time when he was arranging the inner lines of defence on the very frontiers of the barbarians, in order to prevent the Persians from overrunning Syria, as had happened a few years before with great damage to the provinces.

For once upon a time at Antioch, amid deep silence,[*](Or perhaps, in a time of profound peace. ) an actor of mimes, who with his wife had been presented in stage-plays, was presenting some scenes from everyday life. And while all the people were amazed at the charm of the performance, the wife suddenly cried: Is it a dream, or are the Persians here? Whereupon all the people turned their heads about and then fled in all directions, to avoid the arrows that were showered upon them from the citadel. Thus the city was set on fire, and many people who were carelessly wandering about, as in time of peace, were butchered; neighbouring places were burned and devastated, and the enemy, laden with plunder, returned home without the loss of a single man. Mareades, who had inconsiderately brought the Persians there to the destruction of his own people, was burned alive. This took place in the time of Gallienus.[*](260-268; according to others, it was in the time of his father Valerian.)

But while Julian was lingering at Cercusium, to the end that his army with all its followers might cross the Abora on a bridge of boats, he received a sorrowful letter from Sallustius, prefect of Gaul,

But the emperor, disregarding his cautious counsellor, pushed confidently on, since no human power or virtue has ever been great enough to turn aside what the decrees of fate had ordained. Immediately upon crossing the bridge he ordered it to be destroyed, so that no soldier in his own army might entertain hope of a return.

Here also, with like fatality, an unfavourable omen appeared: the outstretched corpse of a certain attendant slain by the hand of an executioner, whom the resident prefect[*](See xiv. 1, 10, note.) Salutius had condemned to death because, after promising to supply additional provisions within a designated time, he had been prevented by an accident from keeping his word. But on the day after the wretched man had been executed another fleet arrived, as he had promised, bringing an abundance of supplies.

Setting out from there we came to a place called Zaitha, which means Olive tree. Here we saw, conspicuous from afar, the tomb of the Emperor Gordianus,[*](Zosimus, iii. 14, locates the tomb at Dura: see below, ch. 8.) of whose deeds from early childhood, his successful campaigns, and his treacherous murder we have spoken at the appropriate time.[*](In one of the lost books.)

When Julian had there, in accordance with his native piety, made offerings to the deified emperor, and was on his way to Dura (a deserted town), he saw a troop of soldiers in the distance and halted. And while he was in doubt what they were bringing, they presented him with a lion of huge size, which

And, in fact, we read of other ambiguous oracles, the meaning of which only the final results determined: as, for example, the truth of the Delphic prediction which declared that Croesus, after crossing the river Halys, would overthrow a mighty kingdom;[*](This oracle is often quoted; see Hdt. i. 53, where the envoys announced to Croesus: ἢν στρατεύηται ἐπὶ πέρσας, μεγάλην ἀρχήν μιν καταλύσειν: Cic., Div. ii. 56, 115, Croesus Halyn penetrants magnam pervertet opum vim. ) and another which in veiled language designated the sea as the place for the Athenians to fight against the Medes;[*](The oracle bade the Greeks defend themselves with wooden walls. In general, see Cic., Div. ii. 26, 56.) and a later one than these, which was in fact true, but none the less ambiguous: Aeacus’ son, I say, the Roman people can conquer.[*](Cf. Ennius, Ann. 174, Remains of Old Latin, L.C.L., i.)

However, the Etruscan soothsayers, who accompanied the other adepts in interpreting prodigies, since they were not believed when they often tried to prevent this campaign, now brought out their books on war, and showed that this sign was adverse and prohibitory to a prince invading another’s territory, even though he was in the right.

But they were spurned by the opposition of the philosophers, whose authority was then highly valued, but who were sometimes in error and very persistent in matters with which they had little acquaintance. They, indeed, advanced as a specious argument for establishing belief in their knowledge,

Likewise, on the following day, which was the seventh of April, as the sun was already sloping towards its setting, starting with a little cloud thick darkness suddenly filled the air and daylight was removed; and after much menacing thunder and lightning a soldier named Jovian, with two horses which he was bringing back after watering them at the river, was struck dead by a bolt from the sky.

Upon seeing this, Julian again called in the interpreters of omens, and on being questioned they declared emphatically that this sign also forbade the expedition, pointing out that the thunderbolt was of the advisory kind;[*](On this kind of thunderbolt see Seneca, Nat. Quaest. ii. 39, 1 ff.) for so those are called which either recommend or dissuade any act. And so much the more was it necessary to guard against this one. because it killed a soldier of lofty name[*](Since Jovianus is connected with Jupiter.) as well as war-horses, and because places which were struck in that manner—so the books on lightning[*](These prescribed the rites and taboos connected with thunderbolts. The expression libri fulgurales seems to occur only here and in Cic., Div. i. 33, 72, where we have haruspicini et fulgurales et rituales libri. ) declare— must neither be looked upon nor trodden.

The philosophers, on the other hand, maintained that the brilliance of the sacred fire which suddenly appeared signified nothing at all, but was merely the course of a stronger mass of air sent downward from the aether by some force; or if it did give any sign, it foretold

So when the bridge had been broken down (as was said before) and all had crossed, the emperor thought that the most urgent of all his duties was to address the soldiers, who were advancing confidently through trust in themselves and their leader. Therefore, when the signal had been given with the trumpets, and all the centuries, cohorts and maniples had come together, he took his place upon a mound of earth, surrounded by a ring of high officials, and with calm countenance and favoured with the unanimous devotion of all, spoke as follows: