Res Gestae

For Fortune (I hope) which aids good purposes, so far as I can accomplish this and effect it, will give me after careful search a man of sober character.[*](As colleague in the imperial power.) For as the philosophers teach us, not only in royal power, where the greatest and most numerous dangers are found, but also in the relations of private and everyday life, a stranger ought to be admitted to friendship by a prudent man only after he has first tested him; not tested after he has been admitted to friendship.

This I promise you with the hope of a happier future. Do you, while the winter rest allows, retain your firmness and loyalty of conduct and refresh your strength of spirit and body: then be sure that you will receive without delay what is your due[*](The emperors chosen by the soldiers, on entrance into power often gave them gifts (donativa). According to Dio, this was repeated every fifth and tenth year, and each) because of your imperial nomination of myself.

Having finished his address, to which his unexpected assumption of authority had given greater weight, the emperor gained the favour of the soldier received five aurei. The custom was finally abolished by Justinian.

While the changing lots of the fates were unfolding these events in the Orient, Apronianus, prefect of the eternal city, a just and strict official, among urgent cares with which that office is often burdened, made it his first main effort that the sorcerers, who at that time were becoming few in number, should be arrested, and that those who, after having been put to the question, were clearly convicted of having harmed anybody, after naming their accomplices, should be punished with death; and that thus through the danger to a few, the remainder, if any were still in concealment, might be driven away through dread of a similar fate.

In this work he is said to have shown special activity for the following reason, namely, that after his appointment by authority of Julian, when he was still living in Syria, he had lost one eye on the way, and suspecting that he had been attacked by wicked arts, with justifiable but extraordinary resentment he tracked out these and other crimes with great energy. In this he seemed cruel to some because more than once during the races in the ampitheatre, while throngs of people were crowding in, he in- vestigated the greatest crimes.[*](Cf. xv. 7, 2, of Leontius.)

Finally, after many punishments of the kind, a charioteer[*](Such men used poison and magic against the horses of their rivals; cf. xxviii. 1, 27; 4, 25.) called

But efforts were still made to check these and similar offences, and none, or at any rate very few, who were engaged in such abominations defied the public diligence. But later, long-continued impunity nourished these monstrous offences, and lawlessness went so far that a certain senator followed the example of Hilarinus, and was convicted of having apprenticed a slave of his almost by a written contract to a teacher of evil practices to be initiated into criminal secrets; but he bought escape from the death penalty, as current gossip asserted, for a large sum of money.

And this very man, after being freed in the manner alleged, although he ought to be ashamed of his life and his offence, has made no effort to get rid of the stain on his character, but as if among many wicked men he alone was free from any fault, mounts a caparisoned horse and rides over the pavements, and even now is followed by great bands of slaves, by a new kind of distinction aiming to draw special attention to himself. Just as we hear of Duillius of old, that after that glorious sea-fight, he assumed the privilege, when he returned

However, under this Apronianus there was such a constant abundance of all necessary articles of food, that there never arose even the slightest murmur about a scarcity of victuals—a thing which constantly happens in Rome.

Now Valentinian was chosen emperor in Bithynia (as we have said before). He gave the signal for the march for the next day but one, and assembling the chief civil and military officials, as if ready to follow safe and sound advice rather than his own inclination, inquired who ought to be chosen as partner in the rule. When all the rest were silent, Dagalaifus, at that time commander of the cavalry, boldly answered: If you love your relatives, most excellent emperor, you have a brother; if it is the state that you love, seek out another man to clothe with the purple.

The emperor, angered by this, but keeping silence and concealing his thoughts, forcing the pace, entered Nicomedia on the first of March, and appointed his brother Valens chief of his stable with the rank of tribune.

Then, on his arrival in Constantinople, after much counsel with himself, considering that he was already unequal to

No sooner were these arrangements perfected without disturbance than both emperors were seized with violent and lingering fevers; but as soon as their hope of life was assured, being more successful m investigating various matters than in settling them, they commissioned Ursatius, the chief-marshal of the court, a rough Dalmatian, and Viventius of Siscia,[*](In Pannonia.) who was then quaestor, to make a strict investigation of what they suspected to be the cause of these diseases. Persistent rumour had it, that their purpose was, by asserting that they had been harmed by secret sorcery, to rouse hatred of the memory of the emperor Julian and his friends. But this charge was easily shown to have nothing in it, since no evidence of such plots was found, even in a single word.[*](According to Zosimus (xiii. 14, 15 f.), these designs were frustrated by the activity of the praetorian prefect Salutius.)

At this time, as if trumpets were sounding the war-note throughout the whole Roman world, the most savage peoples roused themselves and poured across

The king of the Persians was laying hands on Armenia, hastening with mighty efforts to bring that country again under his sway, under the false pretext that after the death of Jovian, with whom he had concluded a treaty of peace, nothing ought to prevent his recovery of what he claimed had formerly belonged to his forefathers.