Res Gestae

The emperor had not yet ended his address when his words were received with joyful acclaim, and the soldiers, each according to his rank and feeling, striving to outdo the others, as though sharers in this prosperity and joy, hailed Gratianus as Augustus, with loud shouts mingled with the favouring clash of arms.

On perceiving this, Valentinian, filled with greater joy and confidence, adorned his son with the crown and the robes of supreme rank, and kissed him; then, resplendent as Gratianus was and listening attentively to his father’s words, Valentinian addressed him as follows:—

Behold, my dear Gratian, you now wear, as we have all hoped, the imperial robes, bestowed upon you under favourable auspices by my will and that of our fellow-soldiers. Therefore prepare yourself, considering the weight of your urgent duties, to be the colleague of your father and your uncle and accustom yourself fearlessly to make your way with the infantry over the ice of the Danube and the Rhine, to keep your place close beside your soldiers, to give your life’s blood, with all thoughtfulness, for

This will suffice for the present by way of admonition; for the future I shall not cease to advise you. Now for the rest I turn to you, great defenders of our country, whom I beg and implore with firm affection to watch over your emperor, not yet grown up, thus entrusted to your loyalty.

After these words had been ratified with all solemnity, Eupraxius, a Moor of Caesariensis, then master of the rolls, was the first of all to cry out: The house of Gratianus is worthy of this; whereupon he was at once advanced to the quaestorship. He was a man who left many proofs of noble self-confidence worthy of imitation by sensible men, one who never deviated from the principles of a fearless nature, but was always firm andresembled the laws, which, as we know, in the manifold cases in court speak with one and the same voice;[*](Cf. Cic., De Off. ii. 12, 41 f., eademque constituendarum legum fuit causa quae regum. Ius enim semper est quaesitum aequabile . . . id si ab uno iusto et bono viro consequebantur, erant eo contenti; cum id minus contingeret, leges sunt inventae, quae cum omnibus semper una atque eadem voce loquerentur. ) and he then remained truer to the side of justice which he had espoused, even when the emperor, becoming arbitrary, assailed him with threats when he gave him good advice.

After this, all rose up to praise the elder and the younger emperor, and especially the boy, who was recommended by the fierier gleam of his eyes, the delightful charm of his face and his whole body, and the noble nature of his heart; these qualities would have completed an emperor fit to be compared with the choicest rulers of the olden time, had this been allowed by the fates