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).

Soon after this, Phrynichus composed a play with this disaster as its plot, which he put upon the stage at Athens in the lofty language of tragedy. At first he was heard with pleasure, but as the sad story went on in too tragic style, the people became angry and punished[*](With a fine of 1000 drachmas. The play was the Capture of Miletus, produced soon after 494 B.C.; cf. Herodotus, vi. 21.) him, thinking that

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consolation was not his object but blame and reproach, when he had the bad taste to include among stage-plays a portrayal even of those sufferings which a well-beloved city had undergone, without receiving any support from its founders.[*](For auctores in this sense, cf. Suet., Claud. 25, 3.) For Miletus was a colony of the Athenians founded by Nileus, the son of Codrus (who is said to have sacrificed himself for his country in the Dorian war) and by other Ionians.[*](Ammianus’ purpose in telling this story is to show that he might dread to give a description of the degeneracy of the Romans, for fear of what befel Phrynichus.)

But let us come to our subject. Maximinus, who formerly held the office of vice-[*](368 A.D.) prefect at Rome, was born at Sopianae, a town of Valeria,[*](Formerly a part of Pannonia (cf. xix. 11, 4).) of very humble parents, his father being an accountant in the governor’s office[*](Cf. praesidialis apparitor, xvii. 3, 6.) and sprung from ancestors who were Carpi, a people whom Diocletian drove from its ancient abode[*](I.e., from Dacia, 294–6.) and transferred to Pannonia.

Maximinus, after some slight study of the liberal arts, and after acting as a pleader without acquiring distinction, became governor of Corsica, also of Sardinia, and finally of Tuscia.[*](Etruria (in 366).) then, because his successor lingered too long on the[*](369–70 A.D.) way, although transferred to the charge of the city’s grain supply, he retained also the rule of Tuscia, and at the beginning acted with moderation, for a three-fold reason.

First, because the prophecies of his father were still warm[*](Cf. xxii. 12, 2; xxii. 16, 17.) in his ears, a man exceedingly skilful in interpreting omens from the flight or the notes of birds, who declared he would attain to high power, but would die by the sword of the executioner; secondly, because he had got hold of a man from Sardinia who was highly skilled in

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calling up baneful spirits and eliciting predictions from the ghosts of the dead. This man he himself afterwards put to death, so the rumour went, in a treacherous fashion,—so long as he survived, Maximinus was more yielding and mild, for fear that he might be betrayed—finally, because while creeping through low places like a serpent under ground[*](I.e., while holding offices of minor importance.) he could not yet stir up causes for death on a larger scale.

The first opportunity to widen the sphere of his operations arose from the following affair. Chilo, a former deputy-governor, and his wife Maxima made complaint before Olybrius, at that time prefect of the city,[*](Rome in 368.) declaring that their life had been attempted by poison; and they managed that those whom they suspected should at once be seized and put in prison. The accused were an organ-builder[*](Cf. Suet., Nero, 41, 2; 44, 1; xiv, 6, 18.) Sericus, a wrestler[*](Or wrestling-teacher.) Asbolius, and a soothsayer Campensis.

But as the affair languished because of a severe illness with which Olybrius was long affected, those who had brought the charge, impatient of delay, presented a petition, asking that the examination of the dispute should be turned over to the prefect of the grain supply; and from a desire for a speedy decision this was granted.

Thus Maximinus gained the power of doing harm and poured out the natural cruelty implanted in his hard heart, as often happens with wild beasts in the amphitheatre, when they break in pieces the back-gates and are at last set free. And while the business was being looked into in many ways, as if in a kind of preliminary practice, and some persons, whose sides had been torn into furrows, had named certain nobles as having, through their

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clients and other common people who were notorious as malefactors and informers, made use of men skilled in harmful practices, the hellish judge,going beyond his last[*](On supra plantain see Val. Max. viii. 12, ext. 3, artifex (Apelles) qui in opere suo moneri se a sutore de crepida et ansulis passus, de crure etiam disputare incipientem, supra plantam ascendere vetuit. In the form supra crepidam, it became proverbial (Pliny, N.H. xxxv. 85). Here it means beyond the powers which had been given him.) (as the saying is), in a malicious report to the emperor informed him that the offences which many men had committed at Rome could not be investigated or punished except by severer measures.[*](Suppliciis refers both to tortures in order to exact information and executions accompanied by torture.)

On hearing this, the emperor, in anger, being rather a cruel than a strict foe of vices, gave one general judicial sentence to cover cases of the kind, which he arbitrarily fused with the design of treason, and ruled that all those whom the justice of the ancient code and the edicts of deified emperors had made exempt from inquisitions by torture should, if circumstances demanded, be examined with torments.

And that with doubled power and higher rank Maximinus might patch together a greater heap of calamities, the emperor gave him a temporary appointment as acting prefect at Rome;[*](During the illness of Olybrius.)[*](371–72 A.D.) and he associated with him in the investigation of these charges which were being devised for the peril of many the secretary Leo, afterward chief-marshal of the court,[*](Cf. xxx. 2, 10.) a Pannonian and a grave-robber,[*](Cf. tartareus, xv. 6, 1; funereus, xxix. 5, 46; bustuariusis also used of a gladiator who fought at funeral games, Cic. In Pisonem,9, 19.) snorting forth cruelty from the grinning jaws of a wild beast, and no less insatiable in his thirst for human blood than Maximinus.