Res Gestae

But when Heliodorus died (whether naturally or through some deliberate violence[*](Doubtless through his enemies, who were numerous. Hypatius and Eusebius; see 2, 9, above.) is uncertain; I would rather not say too late: I only wish that even the facts did not speak to that effect!) his body was carried out by the undertakers, and many men of rank, clad in mourning, were ordered to precede it, including the brothers who had been consuls.[*](I.e., of subjecting men of rank to such an indignity.)

Thereby the entire rottenness of the folly of the empire’s ruler was then completely revealed; for although he was earnestly besought to refrain from this inexcusable insult,[*](Cf. xxvii. 11, 6.) yet he remained so inflexible that he seemed to have stopped his ears with wax,[*](Cf. xxviii. 1, 12.) as if he were going to pass the rocks of the Sirens.

At last, however, he yielded to insistent prayers, and ordered that some persons should precede the ill-omened bier of the body-snatcher[*](Cf. Suet., Aug. 100, 4.) to the tomb, marching with bare heads and feet,[*](A sign of mourning; cf. Apul., Metam. iii. 1.) some also with folded hands.[*](Cf. xxviii. 1, 15.) My mind shrinks from recalling, during that suspension of justice,[*](Cf. mundanum fulgorem, xiv. 6, 3.) how many men of the highest rank, especially exconsuls, after having carried the staves of honour and worn purple robes, and having their names made known to all the world 10 in the Roman calendar, were

Conspicuous among all of these was our Hypatius, a man recommended from his youth by noble virtues, of quiet and calm discretion, and of a nobility and gentleness measured as it were by the plumb-line;[*](See xiv. 8, 11, note 2; xxi. 16, 3, note 4.) he conferred honour on the fame of his ancestors[*](Cf. C.I.L. i. part 2, ed. 2, 15 (epitaph of Scipio Hispanus), virtutes generis mieis mribus accumulavi. ) and himself gave glory to posterity by the admirable acts of his two prefectures.[*](At a later time; Flavius Hypatius was prefect of Rome in 397, praetorian prefect in 382 and 383.)

At the time Valens added this also to the rest of his glories, that while in other instances he was so savagely cruel as to grieve that the great pain of his punishments could not continue after death,[*](ferret . . . dolores, hexameter rhythm.) yet he spared the tribune Numerius, a man of surpassing wickedness! This man was convicted at that same time on his own confession of having dared to cut open the womb of a living woman and take out her unripe offspring, in order to evoke the ghosts of the dead and consult them about a change of rulers; yet Valens, who looked on him with the eye of an intimate friend, in spite of the murmurs of the whole Senate gave orders that he should escape unpunished, and retain his life, his enviable wealth, and his military rank unimpaired.

O noble system of wisdom, by heaven’s gift bestowed upon the fortunate, thou who hast often ennobled even sinful natures! How much wouldst thou have corrected in those dark days, if it had been permitted Valens to learn through you that royal power—as the philosophers declare—is nothing else than the care for others’ welfare;[*](Cf. xxv. 3, 18; Cic., De Off. i. 25, 85.) that

A woman of Smyrna confessed before Dolabella,[*](Cf. Val. Max. viii. 1, Amb. 2; Gell. xii. 7, 4. Dolabella is probably the man who was consul with Antony, and after Caesar’s death governed the province of Asia.) the proconsul of Asia, that she had poisoned her husband and her own son by him, because (as she said) she had discovered that they had killed her son by a former marriage; but she was ordered to appear again two days later.[*](I.e., the case was adjourned for that time, as provided by the law of Ser. Sulpicius Galba; cf. Cic., Verr. ii. 1, 7, 20.) Since the council, to which according to custom the matter was referred, uncertain what distinction ought to be made between revenge and crime, hesitated to decide, she was sent before the Areopagites, those strict judges at Athens, whose justice is said to have decided disputes even among the gods.[*](There was a myth that Ares or Mars, to avenge an injury to his daughter, slew Halirrhothius, son of Posidon or Neptune, and that the case came before the Areopagus; of. Aug., De Civ. Dei, xviii. 10.) They, after

After these various deeds of injustice which have already been mentioned, and the marks of torture shamefully branded upon the bodies of such free men as bad survived, the never-closing eye of Justice, the eternal witness and avenger of all things, was watchfully attentive. For the last curses of the murdered, moving the eternal godhead through the just ground of their complaints, had kindled the firebrands of Bellona; so that the truth of the oracle was confirmed, which had predicted that no crimes would go unpunished.