Res Gestae

Therefore, my valiant men, accept I pray you with friendly minds my heart’s desire, convinced that we have wished this action, which the duties of affection sanction, not only to be brought to your knowledge, but also to be confirmed by your approval as agreeable to you and likely to be advantageous.

This son of mine, Gratianus, now become a man, has long lived among your children, and you love him as a tie between you and me; therefore, in order to secure the public peace on all sides, I plan to take him as my associate in the imperial power, if the propitious will of the god of heaven and of your dignity shall support what a father’s love suggests. He has not been, as we have been, brought up in a severe school from his very cradle, nor trained in the endurance of adversity, and (as you see) he is not yet able to endure the dust of Mars; but, in harmony with the glory of his family and the great deeds of his forefathers, he will forthwith rise (I speak with moderation, in fear of Nemesis) to greater heights.

For as I am wont to think, when I consider, as I often do, his character and his inclinations, although they are not yet fully developed: when he enters on the years of youth, since he has been instructed in the liberal arts and in the pursuit of skilful accomplishments, he will

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

However, in this affair Valentinian overstepped the usage established of old, in that he named his brother and his son, not Caesar, but Augustus, generously enough. For before that no one had appointed a colleague of equal power with himself except the emperor Marcus,[*](Marcus Aurelius. Titus is not an exception; see Trans. Amer. Phil. Assoc. xlv. (1914), pp. 43 f.) who made his adopted brother Verus his partner, but without any impairment of his own imperial majesty.

Scarcely had a few days passed since these affairs were settled according to the desire of the emperor and the soldiers,[*](At Amiens, Aug. 24, 367.) when Mamertinus, the praetorian prefect,[*](In Illyricum, Africa, and Italy; cf. xxvi. 5, 5.) on his return from Rome, to which he had gone to correct certain abuses, was charged with peculation[*](In 365.) by Avitianus, a former deputy governor.[*](In Africa.)

Therefore he was displaced by Vulcatius Rufinus, a man excellent in all respects, who seemed to be displaying the crown of an honoured old age,[*](Cf. Cic., DeSen. 17, 61, apexest autemsenectutis auctoritas. ) except that he never let slip a favourable opportunity for gain, if there was hope of concealment.

As soon as he gained the imperial ear, he brought it about that Orfitus, a former prefect of Rome, was freed from banishment,[*](Cf. 3, 2.) and, after restoration of his lost patrimony, was restored to his home.

Valentinian was known to be a cruel man, and although in the early part of his reign, in order to

Most conspicuous, however, at that time was the death (among the executions of other persons of low rank[*](Diocles was not a person of low rank; for this use of alius, which is fairly frequent in Ammianus, see xxiii. 3, 9, crit. note 5. The same is perhaps true of Diodorus.) ) of Diodes, former head of the state treasury in Illyricum, whom the emperor ordered to be burned to death because of some small offences; and also that of Diodorus, former state agent, and of three attendants of the deputy-governor of Italy; all these suffered cruel execution because the commanding general complained to the emperor that Diodorus had implored the aid of the law against him, as was his right,[*](I.e., as was the right of a citizen; cf. Apul., Metam. x. 6. civiliter, if it is the correct reading, gives the opinion of Ammianus, not of the accuser; see crit. note.) and that the officials,[*](The attendants of the deputy-governor.) by order of the judge, had ventured to summon him as he was going on a journey, to answer to the action according to law. The memory of these victims is still honoured by the Christians in Milan,[*](The seat of the deputy-governor of Italy.) who call the place where they are buried The Place of the Innocents.