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).

The emperor was indeed inexperienced, but very reasonable as yet in his judgment of conditions, until he was led astray by the fatal blandishments of his flatterers and inflicted on his country losses ever to be lamented; therefore,

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consulting for the common welfare, he decided that peace ought to be granted.

Accordingly, he in his turn sent as envoys Victor and Arintheus, of whom one then commanded the cavalry and the other the infantry, and when their trustworthy report had informed him that the Goths agreed to the conditions which he offered, a convenient place was appointed for concluding peace. But since Athanaricus declared that he was bound by an oath accompanied[*](367 A.D.) by a fearful imprecation, and thus prevented by his father’s orders from ever setting foot on Roman soil, and since he could not be induced to do so, and it was unbecoming and degrading for the emperor to cross to him, it was decided by those of good judgment that ships should be rowed into mid-stream, one carrying the emperor with his guard, the other the Gothic ruler with his men, and that thus a treaty of peace should be struck, as had been agreed.

When this had been arranged and hostages received, Valens returned to Constantinople, where later Athanaricus, driven from his native land by a faction of his kinsmen, died a natural death and was buried after our fashion with splendid rites.[*](See p. 32, note 1.)

Meanwhile, when Valentinian was attacked by a severe illness and was at the point of death, the Gauls who were at court in the emperor’s service,

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at a secret conference demanded that Rusticus Julianus, then master of the rolls, should be made emperor: a man who, as if smitten by a blast of madness, was as greedy for human blood as a wild beast, as he showed when governing Africa with proconsular power.

For as prefect of the city,[*](This was later. He was proconsul in 371 and 372, and city prefect in 388.) in the administration of which office he died, through fear of the precarious situation of the tyrant,[*](Maximus, who slew Gratian and ruled for five years. His rise and fall are vividly described by Kipling in Puck of Pooke’s Hill. ) through whose choice he had risen to that high position as if for the lack of worthy men, he was compelled to assume the appearance of mildness and clemency.

Against these Gauls some with higher aims strove in the cause of Severus, then commander of the infantry, as a man fitted for attaining that rank; and, although he was strict and feared, yet he was more endurable and in every way to be preferred to the aforenamed aspirant.