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).

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.

The persistent natural bent of Maximinus to cruel conduct was increased by the coming of a colleague of the same character and by the charm of a commission conferring lofty rank. Therefore, full of joy, he turned his steps this way and that, seeming to dance rather than walk, and

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seeking to imitate the Brahmins, who march (as some say) above the earth among their altars.[*](Philostratus, Vita Apollonii, iii. 15, says that the Brahmins sometimes levitated themselves two cubits high from the ground . . . walking with the sun.)

And now, as the trumpets sounded the signal for the murder of citizens and all were stupified by the horrible situation, besides many harsh and merciless acts, which because of their variety and number cannot be enumerated, the execution of Marinus, a public advocate, was conspicuous. This man was accused of having dared by forbidden arts to try to gain a certain Hispanilla as his wife, and when the truthfulness of the evidence had been perfunctorily examined, Maximinus condemned him to death.