Res Gestae

Finally, to be brief, it is well known that he was so merciful towards some open enemies who plotted against him, that he corrected the severity of their punishment by his inborn mildness.

His fortitude is shown by the great number of his battles and by his conduct of wars, as well as by his endurance of excessive cold and heat. And although bodily duty is demanded from a soldier, but mental duty from a general, yet he once boldly met a savage enemy in battle and struck him down,[*](Cf. xxiv. 4, 4.) and when our men gave ground, he several times alone checked their flight[*](Cf. Suet. Jul. 62.) by opposing his breast to them. When destroying the king- doms of the raging Germans and on the burning sands of Persia he added to the confidence of his

There are many notable evidences of his knowledge of military affairs: the sieges of cities and fortresses, undertaken amid the extremest dangers, the varied forms in which he arranged his lines of battle, the choice of safe and healthful places for camps, the wisely planned posting of frontier guards and field pickets.

His authority was so well established that, being feared as well as deeply loved as one who shared in the dangers and hardships of his men, he both in the heat of fierce battles condemned cowards to punishment, and, while he was still only a Caesar,[*](Under the authority of Constantius; see Introd., p. xxiv.) he controlled his men even without pay, when they were fighting with savage tribes, as I have long ago said. And when they were armed and mutinous, he did not fear to address them and threaten to return to private life, if they continued to be insubordinate.

Finally, one thing it will be enough to know in token of many, namely, that merely by a speech he induced his Gallic troops, accustomed to snow and to the Rhine, to traverse long stretches of country and follow him through torrid Assyria to the very frontiers of the Medes.

His success was so conspicuous that for a long time he seemed to ride on the shoulders of Fortune herself, his faithful guide as he in victorious career surmounted enormous difficulties. And after he left the western region, so long as he was on earth all nations preserved perfect quiet, as if a kind of earthly wand of Mercury were pacifying them.

There are many undoubted tokens of his

Having set down his good qualities, so many as I could know, let me now come to an account of his faults, although they can be summed up briefly. In disposition ho was somewhat inconsistent, but he controlled this by the excellent habit of submitting, when he went wrong, to correction.

He was somewhat talkative, and very seldom silent; also too much given to the consideration of omens and portents, so that in this respect he seemed to equal the emperor Hadrian. Superstitious rather than truly religious, he sacrificed innumerable victims without regard to cost, so that one might believe that if he had returned from the Parthians, there would soon have been a scarcity of cattle; like the Caesar Marcus,[*](Marcus Aurelius.) of whom (as we learn) the following Greek distich was written:

1. We the white steers do Marcus Caesar greet.
2. Win once again, and death we all must meet.

He delighted in the applause of the mob, and desired beyond measure praise for the slightest matters, and the desire for popularity often led him to converse with unworthy men.

But yet, in spite of this, his own saying might be regarded as sound, namely, that the ancient goddess of Justice, whom Aratus[*](Cf. xxii. 10, 6.) raised to heaven because of her impatience with men’s sins, returned to earth again during his rule, were it not that sometimes he acted arbitrarily, and now and then seemed unlike himself.

For the laws which he enacted were not oppressive, but stated exactly what was to be done or left undone, with a few exceptions, For example, it was a harsh law that forbade Christian[*](Cf. xxii. 10, 7.) rhetoricians and grammarians to teach, unless they consented to worship the pagan deities.

And also it was almost unbearable that in the municipal towns he unjustly allowed persons to be made members of the councils, who, either as foreigners, or because of personal privileges or birth, were wholly Exempt from such assemblies.[*](It must be remembered that such offices were a burden which many sought to avoid; cf. xxii. 9, 12.)

The figure and proportion of his body were as follows. He was of medium stature. His hair lay smooth as if it had been combed, his beard was shaggy and trimmed so as to end in a point, his eyes were fine and full of fire, an indication of the acuteness of his mind. His eyebrows were handsome, his nose very straight, his mouth somewhat large with a pendulous lower lip. His neck was thick and somewhat bent, his shoulders large and broad. Moreover, right from top to toe he was a man of straight

And since his detractors alleged that he had stirred up the storms of war anew, to the ruin of his country, they should know clearly through the teachings of truth, that it was not Julian, but Constantine, who kindled the Parthian fires, when he confided too greedily in the lies of Metrodorus,[*](Metrodorus, a philosopher, in the time of Constantine the Great, is said to have made his way to farthest India with the intention of going around the world. Winning the favour of the Brachmanae and being admitted to their shrines, he stole many pearls and other gems. The king of the Indi also gave him many jewels of great price, which he was to offer to Constantine in the name of the king. When Metrodorus returned to Byzantium, he presented these to Constantine as his own gift, and said that he had sent many more to him by the land route, but that they had all been seized by the Persians. When Constantine demanded their return from Sapor, he received no reply, and thus the peace between the Romans and the Persians was broken. This story is told by Georgius Cedrenus in his Chron. anno xxi Constantini (p. 295A f.), but it is regarded as apocryphal.) as I explained fully some time ago.[*](In a lost book.)

This it was that caused the annihilation of our armies, the capture so often of whole companies of soldiers, the destruction of cities, the seizure or overthrow of fortresses, the exhaustion of our provinces by heavy expenses, and the threats of the Persians which were soon brought into effect, as they claimed everything as far as Bithynia and the shores of the Propontis.

But in Gaul, where barbarian arrogance grew apace, as the Germans swarmed through our territories, and the Alps were on the point of being forced with the resulting devastation of Italy, after the inhabitants had suffered many unspeakable woes, nothing was left save tears and fears, since the recollection of the past was bitter and the anticipation of what threatened was sadder still: all this that young man, sent to the western region, a Caesar in name

And in order to restore the Orient with similar energy, he attacked the Persians, and he would have won from them a triumph and a surname, if the decrees of heaven had been in accord with his plans and his splendid deeds.

And although we know that some men thoughtlessly laugh at experience to such an extent that they sometimes renew wars when defeated, and go to sea again after shipwreck,[*](Cf. Sen., De Benef. i. 1, 10; adeoque adversus experimenta pertinaces sumus, ut bella victi et naufragi maria repetamus. ) and return to meet difficulties to which they have often yielded, there are some who blame a prince who had been everywhere victorious for trying to equal his past exploits.