Res Gestae

Through these and other equally lamentable crimes, which were a blot on the fair aspect of the Eternal City, this man, to be named only with groans, made his violent way over the ruins of many fortunes, passing beyond the limits afforded by the courts. For he is said to have had a cord hanging from a secluded window of his palace, the lower end of which could pick up certain seemingly incriminating charges, supported, it is true, by no evidence, but nevertheless likely to injure many innocent persons.[*](The text is very uncertain, and probably corrupt; see the crit. note. The general meaning is clear.) And sometimes he ordered Mucianus and Barbarus, his attendants, who were most skilled in deception, severally to be cast out of his house.

These two then, as if bewailing the fate by which they pretended to be overwhelmed, exaggerated the cruelty of the judge and often repeated the assertion that the accused had no other means of saving their lives than by charging men of high rank with serious crimes; for they declared that by involving such men in the same accusations with themselves they could easily secure an acquittal.

Because of this, with a ruthlessness now passing all bounds, the hands of very many were bound in fetters, and men of noble birth were seen in mourning garb and in distress. And none of them could rightly be blamed, since very often when waiting upon him with bodies bent so as almost to touch the ground, they constantly heard that brigand with the heart of a wild beast shout that no one could be found innocent without his consent.

Such words, which accomplishment quickly followed, would surely have terrified men like Numa Pompilius, and a Cato. For, in fact, the business was conducted in such a way that some people could not even contemplate the ills of others with dry eyes, a thing which often happens in the many difficult trials of life.

Nevertheless, the iron-hearted judge, often as he deviated from law and justice, was endurable in what may be called one special thing. For at times he could be prevailed upon to show mercy to some; although this, we read in the following passage in Cicero,[*](Ad Quint. Frat. i. 1, 13, 39.) is almost a vice: For, he says, when anger is implacable, there is extreme severity; but if it yields to entreaties, the greatest inconstancy: yet the latter, as a choice of evils, is to be preferred to severity.

After this, Maximinus received a successor,[*](Ursicinus; see § 44, below.) and was summoned to the emperor’s court, as Leo[*](Cf. 1, 12, above.) had been before him; and there, being promoted to the praetorian prefecture, he was no whit milder, but like the basilisk,[*](Cf. xxii. 15, 27, and Spenser, F.Q. iv. 8, 39: Like as the Basiliske, of serpents seede,From powrefull eyes close venim doth conveyInto the lookers hart, and killeth farre away.) was harmful even from a distance.

At that time, or not much earlier, the brooms with which the assembly-hall of the nobles was swept were seen to bloom, and this was an omen that some men of the most despised station would be raised to high rank in the offices of state.

Although it is high time to return to the course of the history which we have begun, yet, in order not to interfere with the connection of events, I shall linger over a few of the wrongful acts committed by the iniquity of the vice-prefects in the city, since it was according to the nod and wish of Maximinus that they were done by those same subordinates—I might say attendants.

After him came Ursicinus, inclined to milder measures; he, wishing to be prudent and kindly, had referred to the Court the information that Esaias (with others who had been imprisoned because of adulterous relations with Rufina) was trying to bring a charge of treason against her husband, Marcellus, a former agent of the state. In consequence, Ursicinus was despised as inactive and unfit for the vigorous prosecution of such matters, and was forced to withdraw from his deputyship.