Res Gestae

The result was that many innocent persons under the appearance of mercy were thrust forth from their homes, and driven headlong into exile; and their property, which was consigned to the treasury, the emperor himself turned to his own profit,[*](Hadrian and Septimius Severus put such money into the public treasury; see Spart., Hadr. 7, 7; Capitolinus, Albinus, 12, 4.) while the condemned, worn out by the privations of fearful poverty, were reduced to beggary—and that is a fate to avoid which the wise old poet Theognis advises us actually to hurl ourselves into the sea.[*](Edmonds, Elegy and Iambus, i. p. 248, 175 ff., L.C.L.:— Ἄνδρ᾽ ἀγαθὸν πενίη πάντων δάμνησι μάλιστα, καὶ γήρως πολιοῦ, κύρνε, καὶ ἠπιάλου. ἣν δὴ χρὴ φεύγοντα καὶ ἐς βαθυκήτεα πόντον ρἱπτεῖν, καὶ πετρέων, κύρνε, κατ᾽ ἠλιβάτων.)

And even if anyone should admit that these things were right, yet their excess alone was hateful. Whence it was observed that the maxim is true, that no sentence

Accordingly, when the highest officials, to whom the investigations had been entrusted together with the praetorian prefect, had been called together, the racks were made taut, the leaden weights[*](Not lead balls on the scourges (cf. xxviii. 1, 29, note), but actual weights, which were hung to the feet of those who sat on the eculeus, or rack.) were brought out along with the cords and the scourges. The whole place echoed with the horrible cries of a savage voice, as those who did the awful work shouted amid the clanking of chains: Hold him; clamp; tighten; away with him.[*](Cf. Aeschylus, Prom. 58)

And, since I have seen many condemned after horrible tortures, but everything is a jumble of confusion as in times of darkness, I shall, since the complete recollection of what was done has escaped me, give a brief and summary account of what I can recall.

First, after some unimportant questions, Pergamius was called in, betrayed (as has been said)[*](Cf. 1, 6, above.) by Palladius of having foreknowledge of certain things through criminal incantations. Since he was very eloquent and was prone to say dangerous things, while the judges were in doubt what ought to be asked first and what last, he began to speak boldly, and shouted out in an endless flood the names of a very large number of men as accomplices, demanding that some be produced from all but the ends of the earth, to be accused of great crimes. He, as the contriver of too hard a task,[*](In calling for the trial of so many men, and from remote places.) was punished with death; and after him others were executed

And that same day, among very many others, this sad event also happened, that Salia, shortly before master of the treasures[*](There were two classes of comites thesaurorum: one (comitatenses), located at the court, had charge of the imperial wardrobe, table-furnishings, etc.; the other (provinciarum et urbium) of the revenues and the equipment of the soldiers.) in Thrace, when he was brought out of prison to be heard, just as he was putting his foot into his shoe, as if under the stroke of great terror suddenly falling upon him, breathed his last in the arms of those who held him.

Well then, when the court was ready to act, while the judges called attention to the provisions of the laws, but nevertheless regulated their handling of the cases according to the wish of the ruler, terror seized upon all. For Valens had entirely swerved from the high-way of justice, and had now learned better how to hurt; so he broke out into frenzied fits of rage, like a wild beast trained for the arena if it sees that anyone brought near to the barrier has made his escape.

Then Patricius and Hilarius were brought in and ordered to give a connected account of what had happened. In the beginning they were at variance with each other, but when their sides had been furrowed and the tripod which they were in the habit of using was brought in, they were driven into a corner, and gave a true account of the whole business, which they unfolded from its very beginning. First Hilarius said:

O most honoured judges, we constructed from laurel twigs under dire auspices this unlucky little table which you see, in the likeness of the Delphic tripod, and having duly consecrated it by

It was placed in the middle of a house purified thoroughly with Arabic perfumes; on it was placed a perfectly round plate made of various metallic substances. Around its outer rim the written forms of the twenty-four letters of the alphabet were skilfully engraved, separated from one another by carefully measured spaces.

Then a man clad in linen garments, shod also in linen sandals and having a fillet wound about his head, carrying twigs from a tree of good omen, after propitiating in a set formula the divine power from whom predictions come, having full knowledge of the ceremonial, stood over the tripod as priest and set swinging a hanging ring fitted to a very fine linen[*](Valesius read carbasio, which would correspond to the linen garments and sandals; the Thes. Ling. Lat. reads carpathio = linteo. ) thread and consecrated with mystic arts. This ring, passing over the designated intervals in a series of jumps, and falling upon this and that letter which detained it, made hexameters corresponding with the questions and completely finished in feet and rhythm, like the Pythian verses which we read, or those given out from the oracles of the Branchidae.[*](The descendants of a certain Branchus, a favourite of Apollo, who were at first in charge of the oracle at Branchidae, later called oraculum Apollinis Didymei (Mela, i. 17, 86), in the Milesian territory; cf. Hdt. i. 1 57. The rings had magic powers, cf. Cic., De Off. iii. 9, 38; Pliny, N. H. xxxiii. 8. Some writers give a different account of the method of divination used by the conspirators.)

When we then and there inquired, what man will succeed the present emperor?, since it was said that he would be perfect in every particular,

And when Hilarius had laid the knowledge of the whole matter so clearly before the eyes of the judges, he kindly added that Theodorus was completely ignorant of what was done. After this, being asked whether they had, from belief in the oracles which they practised, known beforehand what they were now suffering, they uttered those familiar verses which clearly announced that this work of inquiring into the superhuman would soon be fatal to them, but that nevertheless the Furies, breathing out death and fire, threatened also the emperor himself and his judges. Of these verses it will suffice to quote the last three:

1. Avenged will be your blood. Against them too
2. Tisiphonê’s deep wrath arms evil fate,
3. While Ares rages on the plain of Mimas.

Later, in order wholly to lay bare this factory of the crimes that had been meditated, a group of distinguished men was led in, comprising the very heads of the undertaking. But since each one had regard for nothing but himself, and tried to shift his ruin to another, by permission of the inquisitors Theodorus

Then Euserius, under bloody torture, made the same confession, but Theodorus was convicted by a letter of his own written in ambiguous and tortuous language to Hilarius, in which he did not hesitate about the matter, but only sought an opportunity to attain his desire, having already a strong confidence begotten from the soothsayers.

When these had been removed after this information, Eutropius,[*](Praetorian prefect in 380 and 381; whether he was the same as the author of the Epitome of Roman History is uncertain.) then governing Asia with proconsular authority, was summoned on the charge of complicity in the plot. But he escaped without harm, saved by the philosopher Pasiphilus, who, although cruelly tortured to induce him to bring about the ruin of Eutropius through a false charge, could not be turned from the firmness of a steadfast mind.

There was, besides these, the philosopher Simonides, a young man, it is true, but of anyone within our memory the strictest in his principles. When he was charged with having heard of the affair through Fidustius and saw that the trial depended, not on the truth, but on the nod of one man, he said that he had learned of the predictions, but as a man of firm purpose he kept the secret which had been confided to him.

After all these matters had been examined with sharp eye, the emperor, in answer to the question put by the judges, under one decree ordered the execution of all of the accused; and in the presence of a vast throng, who could hardly look upon the dreadful sight without inward shuddering and burdening the air with laments—for the woes of individuals were regarded as common to all—they were all led away and wretchedly strangled except Simonides; him alone that cruel author of the verdict, maddened by his steadfast firmness, had ordered to be burned alive.

Simonides, however, ready to escape from life as from a cruel tyrant, and laughing at the sudden disasters of human destiny, stood unmoved amid the flames; imitating that celebrated philosopher Peregrinus, surnamed Proteus,[*](According to Lucian, who wrote his biography, he was a Cynic; he was born at Parion on the Hellespont, and died in Olympiad 236 (A.D. 165).) who, when he had determined to depart from life, at the quinquennial Olympic festival, in the sight of all Greece, mounted a funeral pyre which he himself had constructed and was consumed by the flames.

And after him, in the days that followed, a throng of men of almost all ranks, whom it would be difficult to enumerate by name, involved in the snares of calumny, wearied the arms of the executioners after being first crippled by rack, lead, and scourge. Some were punished without breathing-space or delay, while inquiry was being made whether they deserved punishment; everywhere the scene was like a slaughtering of cattle.