Res Gestae

While varied rumours were spreading the news of the course of events everywhere, in the army, since the few provisions which (as I have said) we had brought with us were used up, we should have been forced to resort to human bodies, had not the flesh of the slain pack-animals held out for a time; but the result was, that many arms and packs were thrown away; for we were so wasted by fearful hunger, that if anywhere a modius[*](Not more than twenty-five pounds.) of flour was found (which seldom happened) it was sold for ten gold-pieces,[*](About ten pounds or fifty dollars.) and that was considered a cheap price.

Setting out from there, we came to Thilsaphata, where Sebastianus and Procopius, with the tribunes and officers of the soldiers which had been entrusted to them for the defence of Mesopotamia, came out to meet us as formal usage required. And after having been courteously received, they joined our march.

After this we went on more speedily, and looking eagerly at Nisibis, the emperor made a permanent camp outside of the city; but in spite of

There, as the darkness of evening was then approaching, Jovianus, chief among all the secretaries, who (as I have already said[*](Cf. 7, 13, above.) ) at the siege of the city of Maiozamalcha had with others been first to come out through the mine, was taken from the dining-table, led to a secluded spot, thrown headlong into a dry well, and crushed by a great number of stones that were thrown upon him. The reason for this undoubtedly was that, after Julian’s death, he too was named by a few as worthy of the throne, and that after the election of Jovian he had not acted with moderation, but was overheard whispering this and that about some business, and from time to time had even invited military officers to his table.

On the following day Bineses, one of the Persians, who (as I have said) was eminent beyond all others,[*](Cf. 7, 13 above.) hastening to fulfil the orders of his king,

And when all were commanded to leave their homes at once, with tears and outstretched hands they begged that they might not be compelled to depart, declaring that they alone, without aid from the empire in provisions and men, were able to defend their hearths, trusting that Justice herself would, as they had often found, aid them in fighting for their ancestral dwelling-place. But suppliantly as the council and people entreated, all was spoken vainly to the winds, since the emperor (as he pretended, while moved by other fears) did not wish to incur the guilt of perjury.

Thereupon Sabinus, distinguished among his fellow-citizens for his wealth and high birth, declared in impassioned language that Constantius once, when the flames of a cruel war were raging, had been defeated by the Persians and finally had been driven in flight with a few followers to the unprotected post of Hibita, where he was obliged to live on a bit of bread which he begged from an old peasant woman; yet up to his last day he had lost nothing, whereas Jovian at the beginning of his principate, had abandoned the defences of provinces whose bulwarks had remained unshaken from the earliest times.

But when nothing came of this, since the emperor the more stoutly maintained the sanctity of his oath; and when for a time he had refused the crown[*](See note on coronarium, 4, 15, above.) that was offered him but was finally forced to accept it, one Silvanus, a pleader

Accordingly, men were appointed to drive them out, and threatened with death all who hesitated to leave. Lamentation and grief filled the city, and in all its parts no sound save universal wailing was to be heard; the matrons tore their hair, since they were to be sent into exile from the homes in which they were born and reared; mothers who had lost their children, and widows bereft of their husbands, mourned that they were driven far from the ashes of their loved ones; and the weeping throng embraced the doors or the thresholds of their homes.

Then the various roads were filled with people going wherever each could find refuge. In their haste many secretly carried off such of their own property as they thought they could take with them, disregarding the rest of their possessions, which, though many and valuable, they were obliged to leave behind for lack of pack-animals.[*](Cf. Virg., Aen. ii. 490; Val. Flacc. iv. 373. The whole passage suggests Livy’s account of the destruction of Alba Longa (i. 29).)

You are here justly censured, O Fortune of the Roman world! that, when storms shattered our country, you did snatch the helm from the hands of an experienced steersman and entrust it to an untried[*](consummando = inconsummato unfinished. ) youth, who, since he was known during his previous life for no brilliant deeds in that field, cannot be justly either blamed or praised.

But what grieved the very heart of every patriotic citizen was this, that fearful of a rival to his power and

For never (I think) since the founding of our city can it be found by a reader of history that any part of our territory has been yielded to an enemy by an emperor or a consul; but that not even the recovery of anything that had been lost was ever enough for the honour of a triumph, but only the increase of our dominions.

Hence it was that triumphs were refused[*](Cf. Val. Max. ii. 8, 4 an) to Publius Scipio for the recovery of Spain; to Fulvius, when Capua was overcome after long contests, and to Opimius, when, after shifting fortunes of war, the people of Fregellae, at that time our deadly enemies, were forced to surrender.

In fact, the ancient records teach us that treaties made in extreme necessity with shameful conditions, even when both parties had taken oath in set terms, were at once annulled by a renewal of war. For example, when in days of old our legions were sent under the yoke at the Caudine Forks in Samnium[*](Cf. Val. Max. ii. 8, 4 an) ; when Albinus in Numidia devised a shameful peace[*](See Sallust, Jug. 38.) ; and when Mancinus, the author of a disgracefully hasty treaty, was surrendered to the people of Numantia.[*](See xiv. 11, 32; Florus, i. 34, 4 ff.)

So then, after the inhabitants had been withdrawn, and the city had been handed over, the tribune

Procopius set out to fulfil his mission,[*](Or perhaps, on the analogy of exsequiae, on his mournful errand, or for the funeral. ) but immediately after burying the body he disappeared and in spite of the most careful search could not be found anywhere,[*](He perhaps wished to escape the fate of Jovianus; see 8, 18.) until long afterwards he suddenly appeared at Constantinople, clad in the purple.