Res Gestae

Ammianus Marcellinus

Ammianus Marcellinus. Ammianus Marcellinus, with an English translation, Vols. I-III. Rolfe, John C., translator. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; W. Heinemann, 1935-1940 (printing).

For the Alamanni broke through the frontiers of Germany, being unusually hostile for the following reason: when their envoys had been sent to the headquarters, in order as usual to receive the regular appointed gifts,

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smaller and cheaper ones were given them, which they received with indignation and threw away as unworthy of them. And being roughly treated by Ursatius, who was then court-marshal, a hot-tempered and cruel man, they returned home, and exaggerating what had happened, aroused the savage peoples, on the ground that they had been grievously insulted.

And about that time, or not much later, in the Orient Procopius had started a revolution. This and the Alamannic revolt were reported to Valentinian on one and the same day about the first of November as he was on his way to Paris.

Then Valentinian ordered Dagalaifus to go in haste to meet the Alamanni, who after devastating places near the frontier had withdrawn to a distance without the loss of a man. But as to checking the attempt of Procopius before it became ripe, he was distracted by doubt and anxiety, being especially troubled because he did not know whether Valens was alive or whether his death had led Procopius to aspire to the throne.

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

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he was greatly alarmed by a recent example, recalling that Julian a short time before, making light of an emperor[*](Constantius; cf. xiv. 10, 16; 11, 8.) who had been victor in all civil wars, contrary to all hope and expectation had passed with incredible speed from city to city.

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.