Res Gestae

Some, however, through the influence of those who interceded for them, were treated more leniently, among them notably Araxius, who in the very heat of the conflagration had solicited and gained the prefecture;[*](Cf. 7, 6, above.) he, through the intercession of his son-in-law Agilo, was deported to an island, but soon afterwards made his escape.

Euphrasius, however, and also Phronimius were sent to the west and left to the decision of Valentinian.[*](They were Gauls; cf. 7, 4, above.) Euphrasius was pardoned, but Phronimius was banished to the Chersonesus,[*](The Tauric Chersonesus.)

To these events were added other more serious matters, far more to be feared than those of wartime. For executioner, instruments of torture, and bloody inquisitions raged without any distinction of age or of rank through all classes and orders, and under the mantle of peace[*](Implying that in time of war the laws were suspended.) abominable robbery was carried on, while all cursed the ill-omened victory, which was worse than any war, however destructive.

For amid arms and clarions, equality of condition makes dangers lighter; the force of martial valour either destroys what it attacks, or ennobles it; and death (if it comes) is attended with no sense of shame and brings with it at once an end of life and of suffering. But when the laws and statutes are pretexts for impious designs, and judges take their seats in false imitation of the character of a Cato or a Cassius,[*](See xxii. 9, 9, note; and cf. Cic. In Verr. ii. 3, 62, 146 non quaero indices Cassianos, veterem iudiciorum severitatem non requiro. ) but everything is decided according to the will of men of swollen powers, and by their caprice the question of the life or death of all those who come before them is weighed, then, destruction results that is deadly and sudden.

For when any one at that time had become powerful for any reason, and having almost royal authority and being

For the emperor, rather inclined himself to do injury, lent his ear to accusers, listened to death-dealing denunciations, and took unbridled joy in various kinds of executions; unaware of that saying of Cicero’s which asserts that those are unlucky who think that they have power to do anything they wish.

This implacability in a cause which was most just, but where victory brought shame,[*](Cf. Cic., De Off. ii. 8, 27, of Julius Caesar, ergo in illo secuta est honestam causam non honesta victoria. ) delivered many innocent victims to the torturers, either placing them on the rack until they were bowed down[*](With sub eculeo locavit incurvos cf. xxviii. 1, 19, quamquam incurvus sub eculeo staret. In both passages sub eculeo is to be taken with the adjective (incurvos), which is proleptic, meaning under (the torture of) the rack. It cannot be taken literally with locavit and staret, since the eculeus was a wooden instrument shaped somewhat like a horse (ecus, equus) on which the victim was placed with weights on his feet. There he might also be flogged or tortured in other ways. Though commonly translated rack, the eculeuo was not like the medieval rack.) or exposing them to the sword-stroke of a cruel executioner. It would have been better for them (if nature allowed it), to lose even ten lives in battle, rather than though free from all blame, with lacerated sides, amid general groans to suffer punishment for alleged treason, with their bodies first mutilated, a thing which is more awful than any death.

When finally ferocity was overcome by the grief that it caused, and had burnt itself out, the most distinguished men suffered proscription, exile, and other punishments which seem lighter to some, terrible though they are; and in order that another might be enriched, a man of noble birth and perhaps richer in

While that usurper[*](Procopius.) of whose many deeds and his death we have told, still survived, on the twenty-first of July in the first consulship of Valentinian with his brother,[*](365.) horrible phenomena suddenly spread through the entire extent of the world, such as are related to us neither in fable nor in truthful history.

For a little after daybreak, preceded by heavy and repeated thunder and lightning, the whole of the firm and solid earth was shaken and trembled, the sea with its rolling waves was driven back and withdrew from the land, so that in the abyss of the deep thus revealed men saw many kinds of sea-creatures stuck fast in the slime; and vast mountains and deep valleys, which Nature, the creator, had hidden in the unplumbed depths, then, as one might well believe, first saw the beams of the sun.

Hence, many ships were stranded as if on dry land, and since many men roamed about without fear in the little that remained of the waters, to gather fish and similar things[*](E.g. shells.) with their hands, the roaring sea, resenting, as it were, this forced retreat, rose in its turn; and over the boiling shoals it dashed mightily upon islands and broad stretches of the mainland, and levelled innumerable buildings in the cities and wherever else they were found; so that amid the mad discord of the elements the

For the great mass of waters, returning when it was least expected, killed many thousands of men by drowning; and by the swift recoil of the eddying tides a number of ships, after the swelling of the wet element subsided, were seen to have foundered, and the lifeless bodies of shipwrecked persons lay floating on their backs or on their faces.[*](Cf. Pliny, N.H. vii. 77: observatum est. . . virorum cadavera supina fluitare, feminarum prona, velut pudori defunctarum parcente natura. )

Other great ships, driven by the mad blasts, landed on the tops of buildings (as happened at Alexandria), and some were driven almost two miles inland, like a Laconian ship which I myself in passing that way saw near the town of Mothone,[*](Called Methone by Thucydides, ii. 25. It was in the southern part of Messenia. There was another Methone in Magnesia.) yawning[*](Cf. Virg., Aen. i. 123, rimisque fatiscunt. ) apart through long decay.

While throughout the Orient the changing[*](365–6 A.D.) course of events was developing as we have narrated, the Alamanni, after the sad losses and wounds which they had suffered from their frequent battles with Julianus Caesar, having at last renewed their strength (which yet did not equal its old vigour), and being an object of dread for the reasons which we have mentioned above,[*](The ill-treatment of their envoys; see xxvi. 5, 7.) were already overleaping the frontiers of Gaul. And immediately after the first of January, while throughout those icebound regions the grim season of winter bristled, they hurried forth in divisions,[*](There were three divisions; see 2, 2 and 4.) and, without restraint a host was ranging everywhere.

Charietto,[*](Cf. xvii. 10, 5.) who was then commanding general throughout both Germanies, along with soldiers eager for war, set out to meet their first division, taking as a partner in the campaign Severianus, who was also a general, an aged and feeble man, who at Cabillona[*](To-day Chalôn-sur-Saône; cf. xiv. 10, 3, 5; xv. 11, 11.) commanded the