Res Gestae

For having gained leave to name all whom he desired, without distinction of fortune, as dabbling in forbidden practices, like a hunter skilled in observing the secret tracks of wild beasts, he entangled many persons in his lamentable nets, some of them on the ground of having stained themselves with the knowledge of magic, others as accomplices of those who were aiming at treason.

And in order that even wives should have no time to weep over the misfortunes of their husbands, men were immediately sent to put the seal[*](Until the owner should be acquitted or condemned; in the latter case his house and property went to the fiscus. ) on the houses, and during the examination of the furniture of the householder who had been condemned, to introduce privily old-wives’ incantations or unbecoming

As a result, throughout the oriental provinces owners of books, through fear of a like fate, burned their entire libraries; so great was the terror that had seized upon all.[*](Cf. also Zos. iv. 14. In this way Valens greatly diminished our knowledge of the ancient writers, in particular of the philosophers.) Indeed, to speak briefly, at that time we all crept about as if in Cimmerian darkness,[*](See xxviii. 4, 18, note.) feeling the same fears as the guests of the Sicilian Dionysius, who, while filled to repletion with banquets more terrible than any possible hunger, saw with a shudder the swords hanging over their heads from the ceilings of the rooms in which they reclined and held only by single horsehairs.[*](Cf. Cic., Tusc. Disp. v. 21, 61 f.)

At that time Bassianus also, one of a most illustrious family and serving as a secretary of the first class,[*](See Index II, Vol. I, s.v. notarii. ) was accused of trying to gain foreknowledge of higher power, although he himself declared that he had merely inquired about the sex of a child which his wife expected; but by the urgent efforts of the kinsfolk by whom he was defended, he was saved from death; but he was stripped of his rich patrimony.

Amid the crash of so many ruins Heliodorus, that hellish contriver with Palladius of all evils, being a mathematician[*](I.e., an astrologer, a caster of nativities.) (in the parlance of the vulgar) and pledged by secret instructions from the imperial court, after he had been cajoled by every enticement of kindness to induce him to reveal what he knew or could invent, now put forth his deadly stings.

For he was most solicitously pampered with the choicest foods, and earned a great amount of contributed money for presents to his concubines; and so he strode about anywhere and everywhere, displaying his grim face, which struck fear into all. And his assurance was the greater because, in his capacity as chamberlain, he constantly and openly visited the women’s apartments, to which, as he himself desired, he freely resorted, displaying the warrants[*](See xiv. 5, 5, note 3.) of the Father of his People,[*](Ironical, for the emperor.) which were to be a cause of grief to many.

And through these warrants Heliodorus instructed Palladius (as though he were an advocate in public law-suits) what to put at the beginning of his speech, in order the more easily to make it effective and strong, or with which figures of rhetoric he ought to aim at brilliant passages.[*](Text and exact meaning are uncertain. It is not clear what the subject of praemonebat is. G reads Valens for et valere and praemonebatur. )

And since it would be a long story to tell all this gallows-bird[*](The word may mean one who crucifies or one who deserves to be crucified—hence hangman or gallows-bird. The latter seems preferable.) contrived, I will recount this one case, showing with what audacious confidence he smote the very pillars of the patriciate. For made enormously insolent by secret conferences

Eagerly drinking this in, the menacing madman,[*](Valens.) to whom nothing ought to have been permitted, since he thought that everything, even what was unjust, was allowed him,[*](Cf. Seneca, De Ira, iii. 12, 7, nihil tibi liceat, dum irasceris. Quare? Quia vis omnia licere; and Consol. ad Polybium, 7, 2.) inexorably summoned from the farthest boundaries of the empire all those whom the accuser, exempt from the laws, with profound assurance had insisted ought to be brought before him, and ordered a calumnious trial to be set on foot.