Res Gestae

For Aequitius knew of the matter only from the report of the tribune Antonius, who commanded the soldiers in central Dacia and gave a vague account of the affair from that which he himself had heard; and Aequitius himself had not yet heard anything trustworthy, and so merely reported the circumstance to the emperor in simple words.

Upon hearing the news, Valentinian, after raising the said Aequitius to the rank of a commander-in- chief,[*](lit. of a magister; here, magister militum per Illyricum; cf. xxvi. 7, 11. He had been a count; cf. § 3, above. He was consul with Gratian in 374.) decided to go back to Illyricum, lest the rebel after rushing through Thrace and being already formidable should invade Pannonia with a hostile army. For

But his eager longing to return was modified by the advice of his confidential friends, who advised, nay begged him, not to give up Gaul to the savages who threatened destruction, and not under that pretext to abandon provinces which needed strong support. These were supported by deputations from famous cities, who begged that he should not leave unprotected in such hard and doubtful times cities which by his presence he could save from the greatest dangers, since the glory of his name would strike fear into the Germans.

At last, after giving careful thought to what was expedient, he followed the view of the majority, often repeating that Procopius was only his own and his brother’s enemy, but the Alamanni were enemies of the whole Roman world; and so he resolved for the present nowhere to leave the boundaries of Gaul.

And having returned as far as Rheims, and feeling anxious about Africa, for fear that it might suddenly be invaded, he decided that Neoterius, afterwards consul[*](In 390.) but at that time a secretary, should go to protect that province, and also Masaucio, an officer of the household troops, bearing in mind that, having had long training there under his father, the former Count Cretio,[*](Cf. xxi. 7, 4.) he knew all the suspected places; and he joined with them Gaudentius, an officer of the targeteers, a loyal man who long had been known to him.

Because, then, at one and the same time lamentable storms arose on both sides, we shall set down the single events in their proper place, first giving an account of a part of what took place in the Orient, then of the wars with the savages: since most of the events both in the west and in the east took place in the same months; for I fear that by hastening to return from one place to another by leaps and bounds we might confuse everything and involve the course of events in the deepest darkness.

Procopius was born in Cilicia[*](Cf. Zosimus, iv. 4-8.) of a distinguished family and correspondingly educated, and for the reason that he was related to Julian,[*](He was his cousin on his mother’s side; she was a sister of Basilina, Julian’s mother.) who was afterwards emperor, he was conspicuous from his first entry into a public position; and as he was somewhat strict in his life and character, although retiring and silent, he served for a long time with distinction as state-secretary and tribune, and already had prospects of attaining the highest positions. But when after the death of Constantius he became through the change in the situation a relative of the emperor,[*](I.e. Julian.) he aimed higher and entered the order of counts; and it was evident that, if ever he had the opportunity, he would be a disturber of the public peace.

When Julian invaded Persia, he left Procopius in Mesopotamia, in association with Sebastianus, who was given the

Procopius followed these directions with moderation and prudence, but when he learned that Julian had been mortally wounded and died, and that Jovian had been raised to the rule of the empire, and that the false report was circulated that Julian had with the last breath of his failing life declared that it was his wish that Procopius should be entrusted with the helm of the state, he feared that on that account he might be put to death without a trial. Accordingly, he withdrew from public sight; and he was in special fear after the death of Jovianus, the chief of all the secretaries, because he had learned that after Julian’s death Jovianus had been named by a few soldiers as worthy of imperial power, and that from that time on he had been suspected of rebellious designs and had suffered a cruel death.[*](Cf. xxv. 8, 18.)

And because Procopius had learned that he was being tracked with extreme care, in order to avoid the weight of greater hatred he retreated to still more remote and secret places. Then hearing that Jovianus was diligently hunting for his hiding-places, and being already thoroughly wearied of living the life of a wild beast—for being cast down from a lofty station to a lower condition and confined to desert places, he actually suffered from hunger and was deprived of intercourse with mankind—under the compulsion of extreme necessity

There, since it seemed to him a safe refuge,[*](Probably because he thought that he would not be looked for in so important a city.) he hid himself with the most loyal of his friends, a certain Strategius, a soldier of the court guards who rose to be a senator, often going as secretly as possible to Constantinople, as was afterwards known from the testimony of that same Strategius when frequent investigations were held of the accomplices in the cabal.

And so, after the fashion of some clever spy, being unrecognizable because of his unkempt appearance and his leanness, he gathered the gossip, which was then becoming frequent, of many who, since men are always discontented with present conditions, were finding fault with Valens, as being inflamed with a desire of seizing the property of others.

To the emperor’s cruelty deadly incentive was given by his father-in- law[*](The wife of Valens was Albia Dominica.) Petronius, who from the command of the Martensian legion[*](Apparently so named from the Marteni, a people of Babylonia. On the praepositi, see vol. i., Index II.) had by a sudden jump been promoted to the rank of patrician.[*](See Introd., vol. i, p. xxviii.) He was a man ugly in spirit and in appearance, who, burning with an immoderate longing to strip everyone without distinction, condemned guilty and innocent alike, after exquisite tortures, to fourfold indemnities, looking up debts going back to the time of the emperor Aurelian,[*](He ruled from 270-275.) and grieving excessively if he was obliged to let any one escape unscathed.

Along with his intolerable character he had this additional incentive to his devastations, that while he was enriching himself through the woes of others,

These lamentable occurrences, which under Valens, aided and abetted by Petronius, closed the houses of the poor and the palaces of the rich in great numbers, added to the fear of a still more dreadful future, sank deeply into the minds of the provincials and of the soldiers, who groaned under similar oppression, and with universal sighs everyone prayed (although darkly and in silence) for a change in the present condition of affairs with the help of the supreme deity.