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).

This prefect himself[*](Claudius; see § 17, above.) passed his term of office in complete quiet, allowing no public discord over and above reasonable remonstrance[*](That is, which the prefect could not quiet in that way. Querella is ambiguous; and the meaning may be: except that caused by just complaints. ) ; and he restored many old buildings. Among others he built a huge colonnade near the Baths of Agrippa and called it the Portico of Good Outcome, because there is a temple[*](See Varro, R.R. i. 1, 6; cf. Cato, Agr. 141, 3 (of Mars), utique tu fruges . . . grandire beneque evenire siris; Pliny, N.H. xxxiv. 77, says that she was represented in Rome with a patera in her right hand and an ear of wheat and poppies in her left. Her temple at Rome was in the Ninth Region.) to that deity to be seen near by.

v3.p.295

Amid these troublesome disturbances, which the treachery of a general brought about by the atrocious murder of the king of the Quadi, a terrible crime was committed in the Orient, where Papa,[*](Son of Arsaces; cf. xxvii. 12, 9.) king of the Armenians, was killed by secret plots. Of this matter, which was conceived by a nefarious plan, the following (as we have learned) was the original[*](Cf. labes primordialis, xxiii. 6, 24.) cause.

Some crafty men, who had often fattened themselves through losses sustained by the public, brought before Valens and maliciously exaggerated a patchwork of charges against this king, even then only just come to manhood. Among these was the general Terentius,[*](General in Armenia.) a man who walked humbly and always wore a somewhat sad expression, but so long as he lived was a zealous abettor of dissensions.