Res Gestae

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.

All this Procopius observed from his hiding- place, and thinking that when a more favourable turn of fortune should occur, the crown of supreme power could be gained with little trouble, he lay in wait like a beast of prey, ready to leap forth at once on seeing anything which he could seize.

And while he was burning with impatience to hasten his designs, fate offered him this most timely opportunity. For Valens at the end of winter hastened to Syria and had already crossed the frontier of Bithynia, when he learned from the reports of his generals that the Gothic tribes, at that time