Res Gestae

Damasus and Ursinus, burning with a superhuman desire of seizing the bishopric, engaged in bitter strife because of their opposing interests; and the supporters of both parties went even so far as conflicts ending in bloodshed and death. Since Viventius was able neither to end nor to diminish this strife, he was compelled to yield to its great violence, and retired to the suburbs.

And in the struggle Damasus was victorious through the efforts of the party which favoured him. It is a well-known fact that in the basilica of Sicininus,[*](In the Fifth Region, also called Basilica Liberii (see Val. in Wagner-Erfurdt); now Santa Maria Maggiore.) where the assembly of the Christian sect is held, in a single day a hundred and thirty-seven corpses of the slain were found, and that it was only with difficulty that the

Bearing in mind the ostentation in city life, I do not deny that those who are desirous of such a thing ought to struggle with the exercise of all their strength to gain what they seek; for when they attain it, they will be so free from care that they are enriched from the offerings of matrons, ride seated in carriages, wearing clothing chosen with care, and serve banquets so lavish that their entertainments outdo the tables of kings.

These men might be truly happy, if they would disregard the greatness of the city behind which they hide their faults, and live after the manner of some provincial bishops, whose moderation in food and drink, plain apparel also, and gaze fixed upon the earth, commend them to the Eternal Deity and to his true servants as pure and reverent men. But this will be a sufficient digression; let me now return to the course of events.

While the above-mentioned events were taking place in Gaul and Italy, a new campaign was set on foot in Thrace. For Valens, in accordance with the desire of his brother, whom he consulted and by whose will he was guided, took up arms against the Goths, influenced by a just reason, namely, that they had sent aid to Procopius, when he began his civil war. It will be fitting, then, to sketch hastily in a brief digression the early history and the topography of those regions.

A description of Thrace would be easy, if the pens of the earlier writers agreed; but since their obscurity and their differences lend no aid to a work whose aim is truth, it will suffice to set forth what I myself remember to have seen.

That this land formerly consisted of a boundless expanse of gentle plains and lofty mountains, we know from the immortal testimony of Homer, who imagines that the north and west winds begin to blow from there;[*](Iliad, ix. 5.) but this is either a fable, or else in former times the widely extended tracts marked out to be the home of barbarian tribes were all included under the name of Thrace.

A part of these were inhabited by the Scordisci,[*](In the time of Ammianus included in Pannonia.) who are now widely separated from those same provinces: a people formerly cruel and savage, and, as ancient history declares, accustomed to offer up their prisoners as victims to Bellona and Mars, and from their hollowed skulls greedily to drink human blood. By their savageness the Roman state was often sorely troubled and after many lamentable calamities finally lost a whole army with its commander.[*](The consul of 114 B.C., M. Porcius Cato; Dio, xxvi. 88 (vol. ii. L.C.L.); Florus i. 39, 3 f.; Eutr. iv. 24. Nothing is said of Cato’s death by these writers.)

But, as we now see them, those same places, formed in the shape of a crescent moon, present the appearance of a beautiful theatre. At its western summit are the steep mountains through which the narrow pass of Succi opens, separating Thrace from Dacia.

The left side,[*](This reverses the directions usual on our maps; but it is correct, since he begins at the west.) towards the northern stars, is shut in by the lofty heights of Mount Haemus and the Hister,[*](The Danube.) which, where it washes Roman soil,

On the right, which is the south side, extend the cliffs of Rhodope, and where the morning star rises it is bounded by the strait which flows with an abundance of water from the Euxine, and going on with alternating current to the Aegaean, opens a narrow cleft[*](The Thracian Bosphorus, separating Europe (Thrace) from Asia (Mysia). It has a central surface-current flowing from the Euxine, and a deeper one, and also alongshore currents, flowing towards the Euxine.) between the lands.