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).

So, as had been agreed, as soon as the sun’s rays illumined the day, the

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aforesaid Procopius, full of conflicting emotions, went to the Anastasian Baths, named for the sister of Constantine,[*](Anastasia, wife of Bassianus Caesar; according to Zosimus, v. 9, 3, these and the Carosian baths were named from the two daughters of Valens. The other was Carosa, apparently the wife of Procopius, Socrat. iv. 9; Sozom. vi. 9.) where he knew that the legions had their quarters. There he learned from the confidants of his secrets that their whole number in a meeting by night had united in his support. Then, after a pledge of safety was willingly given him, he was received by the throng of venal soldiers and treated indeed with honour, although he seemed in a way to be held as a prisoner; for just as once before, after the death of Pertinax, the praetorians took up Julianus,[*](I.e. Didius Julianus. The praetorians publicly an- nounced that they would bestow the purple on the man who would pay the highest price. When Sulpicianus, prefect of the city, had promised 25,000 sesterces to each praetorian, Julianus offered 30,000 and won the prize.) when he was a bidder for the imperial power, so now also these troops, with an eye to every possible gain, defended Procopius, as he plotted to enter upon his ill-starred rule.

So there he stood rather wasted (you would think that he had come up from the lower world), and because a purple robe could nowhere be found, he was dressed in a gold-embroidered tunic, like an attendant at court, but from foot to waist he looked like a page in the service of the palace[*](The paedagogium was the apartment where pages or slaves were trained for service; cf. Pliny, Epist. vii. 27, 13, and xxix. 3, 3, below.) ; he wore purple shoes on his feet, and bore a lance, and a small piece of purple cloth in his left hand; just as sometimes on the stage you might think that a splendidly decorated figure was suddenly made to appear as the curtain was raised, or through some mimic deception.[*](The language is far from clear, but the general meaning is that he resembled some grotesque actor in a stage-play or mime; Salvète (see Bibliogr. Note, vol. i.) seems to take it to be a figure painted on the curtain. In that case through the curtain would mean by the curtain, as it was raised at the end of a performance; cf. Virg., Georg. iii. 24 f., vel scaena ut versis discedat frontibus utque purpureas intexti tollant aulaea Britanni. The curtain as it rises shows the figure a part at a time and the representation in a mime would be grotesque; Ammianus seems to have combined the two ideas. It is hard to see how per aulaeum can mean behind the curtain, as Büchele takes it, or that a figure on the stage could be seen through the curtain. Yonge omits per aulaeum altogether.)

Raised in a laughable

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manner to this dishonour of all honours,[*](One of Ammianus’ few word-plays; cf. Sail., Hist. i. 55, 22, Maur.; Gell. xii. 9, 3 ff.; Treb. Poll., Claud. 5, 4.) he ad- dressed his supporters with servile flattery, and promised them ample riches and dignities as the first-fruits of his principate. Then he appeared in public, surrounded by a number of armed men, and now advancing with more confidence and with upraised standards, attended with a fearful din of shields mournfully clashing together, which the soldiers from fear of his being pelted from housetops with stones or pieces of tile held closely joined together over the very crests of their helmets.

And as he advanced more boldly,[*](Val. takes intimidius as equivalent to timidius, com- paring Vell. ii. 37, 2, armis infractus. ) the people neither opposed nor favoured him; nevertheless, they were aroused by the sudden charm of novelty which is inborn in most of the commons, and they were still more strongly moved because they one and all (as we have already said) hated Petronius, who was enriching himself by violence, and was reviving transactions that were long since buried, and debts of the misty past brought up again against all classes.[*](See § 7, above.)

Accordingly, when the said Procopius had mounted the tribunal,[*](It was opposite the palace near the Senate House.) and all were filled with amazement, fearing the gloomy silence, and believing (as indeed he had expected) that he had merely come to a steeper road to death, since a trembling which pervaded all his limbs hindered his speaking, he stood for a long time without a

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word. Finally, he beganwith broken and dying utterance to say a little, justifying his action by his relationship with the imperial family; then at first by the low whispers of a few, who had been hired for the purpose, later by the tumultuous acclamations of the people, he was hailed as emperor in disorderly fashion, and hastily went on to the Senate House. There finding none of the distinguished senators, but only a few persons of low rank, with rapid steps he hastened to the palace and entered it with ill-omened step.

Certainly some may wonder that so laughable a reign, rashly and blindly begun, broke out into such lamentable disasters to the state, if perchance they are unacquainted with previous instances, and think that this happened for the first time.