Res Gestae

Let us now turn to the idle and slothful commons. Among them some who have no shoes are conspicuous as though they had cultured names, such as the Messores, Statarii, Semicupae and Serapini, and Cicymbricus, with Gluturinus and Trulla, and Lucanicus with Porclaca and Salsula, and countless others.[*](Cf. xxviii. 4, 7. Ammianus is satirical, since these names are derived from humble occupations.)

These spend all their life with wine and dice, in low haunts, pleasures, and the games. Their temple, their dwelling, their assembly, and the height of all their hopes is the Circus Maximus. You may see many groups of them gathered in the fora, the cross-roads, the streets,[*](See Class. Phil. xxxii (1937), 49 ff.) and their other meeting-places, engaged in quarrelsome arguments with one another, some (as usual) defending this, others that.

Among them those who have enjoyed a surfeit of life, influential through long experience, often swear by their hoary hair and wrinkles that the state cannot exist if in the coming race the charioteer whom each favours is not first to rush forth from the barriers, and fails to round the turning-point closely with his ill-omened[*](Perhaps implying that magic arts have been used against him; but see crit. note. In general, cf. Hor., Odes, i. 1, 4 f., metaque fervidis evitata rotis. ) horses.

And when there is such a dry rot of thoughtlessness, as soon as the longed-for day of the chariot-races begins to

If from there they come to worthless theatrical pieces, any actor is hissed off the boards who has not won the favour of the low rabble with money. And if this noisy form of demonstration is lacking, they cry in imitation of the Tauric race[*](Referring to the myth that the Tauri (xxii. 8, 33) sacrificed strangers at the altar of Diana.) that all strangers—on whose aid they have always depended and stood upright[*](Cf. Aurel. Vict., Caesares, 11, 13, mihi quidem . . . plane compertum urbem Romam externorum virtute . . . praecipue crevisse. ) —ought to be driven from the city. All this in foul and absurd terms, very different from the expressions of their interests and desires made by your commons of old, of whose many witty and happy sayings tradition tells us.[*](Cf. xvi. 10, 13.)

And it has now come to this, that in place of the lively sound of approval from men appointed to applaud, at every public show an actor of afterpieces, a beast-baiter, a charioteer, every kind of player, and the magistrates of higher and lower rank, nay even matrons, are constantly greeted with the shout You should be these fellows’ teachers!; but what they ought to learn no one is able to explain.

The greater number of these gentry, given over to over-stuffing themselves with food,[*](Cf. xxii. 12, 6, for similar language.) led by the charm of the odour of cooking[*](Cf. Suet., Claud., 33, 1, ictus nidore prandii. ) and by the shrill voices of the women, like a flock of peacocks screaming with hunger, stand even from cockcrow beside

But enough for the present of this account of affairs in the city. Now let us return to the other events which were caused by various incidents in the provinces.

In the third consulship of the two Augusti a[*](370 A.D.) horde of Saxons[*](Hieronymus puts the defeat of the Saxons in 374, Cassiodorus in 373. They first appear in history under Diocletian, and had their home in what is now Hqlstein.) broke out, and after overcoming the dangers of the Ocean advanced at rapid pace towards the Roman frontier,[*](Of Gaul.) having often been glutted with the slaughter of our people. The storm of this first inroad was met by Nannenus, the general in charge of those regions, a leader approved by long experience in wars.