Res Gestae

He, being a sharp-wittedman, either guessing what had happened, or perhaps having learned it from the messenger who summoned him, and suspecting that the Gallic troops would violate the terms of peace, pretended that an order-ticket had been sent to him to return with the messenger, in order to guard the banks of the Rhine because the barbarians were getting wilder. And Sebastianus, who was still unaware of the emperor’s death, he sent to a more distant post, which had been secretly ordered; for although Sebastianus was a quiet and peace-loving man, he stood in high favour with the troops, and hence he was particularly to be feared at that time.

Accordingly, after Merobaudes turned back, the matter of succession was carefully considered and the plan was unfolded that the boy Valentinianus,[*](This Valentinianus is not to be confounded with another boy of the same name, then nine years old and the son of Valens, although the ancient writers often confuse them. This Valentinian, son of the emperor of the same name, met a violent death in 392, according to Hieronymus.) son of the deceased emperor and then four years old, should be summoned and given a share in the rule. He was at the time a hundred miles distant, living with his mother Justina[*](According to Zos. iv. 43, she was formerly the wife of Magnentius. Cerealis was her brother.) at the country house called Murocincta.

When this had been approved by unanimous consent, the boy’s uncle

And although, while this was being done, there was some thought that Gratianus would take it amiss that another emperor was chosen without his permission, this fear later vanished and men lived free from care, since Gratianus, besides being a kindly and righteous man, loved his kinsman with great affection and saw to his education.[*](Cf. Ausonius, Gratiarum actio ad Gratianurn, 7: piissimo: huius vero laudis . . . testimonium est . . . instar filii ad imperium frater adscitus. )

Meanwhile Fortune’s rapid wheel, which is always interchanging adversity and prosperity, armed Bellona in the company of her attendant Furies, and transferred to the Orient melancholy events, the coming of which was foreshadowed by the clear testimony of omens and portents.

For after many true predictions of seers and augurs, dogs leaped back when wolves howled, night birds

All this almost in plain speech showed that this kind of death[*](I.e., death by fire.) threatened him. Furthermore, the ghostly form of the king of Armenia and the piteous shades of those who shortly before had been executed in connection with the fall of Theodorus,[*](See xxix. 1, 8 ff.) shrieking horrible songs at night, in the form of dirges, tormented many with dire terrors.

A heifer was found lying lifeless with its windpipe cut, and its death was an indication of great and widespread sorrow from funerals of the people. Finally, when the old walls of Chalcedon were torn down,[*](Because of the conduct of the inhabitants at the time of the uprising of Procopius; cf. Socr., Eccl. Hist. iv. 8, and xxvi. 8, 2.) in order that a bath[*](Constantinianae thermae, Socrates, iv. 8.) might be built at Constantinople, and the rows of stones were taken apart, there was found on a squared block hidden in the midst of the structure of the wall an inscription containing the following Greek verses, clearly revealing what was to happen:

1. When gaily through the city’s festal streets
2. Shall whirl soft maidens in a happy dance,
3. When mournfully a wall shall guard a bath,
4. Then countless hordes of men spread far and wide
5. With warlike arms shall cross clear Istrus’ stream
6. To ravage Scythia’s fields and Mysia’s land.
7. But mad with hope when they Pannonia raid,
8. There battle and life’s end their course shall check.

However, the seed and origin of all the ruin and various disasters that the wrath of Mars aroused, putting in turmoil all places with unwonted fires, we have found to be this. The people of the Huns,[*](Cf. Zos. iv. 20; Sozom. vi. 37; Agathias, 5, 11 ff.) but little known from ancient records, dwelling beyond the Maeotic Sea near the ice-bound ocean, exceed every degree of savagery.

Since there the cheeks of the children are deeply furrowed with the steel[*](Cf. Sidonius, Paneg. ad Avitum, 243 ff.) from their very birth, in order that the growth of hair, when it appears at the proper time, may be checked by the wrinkled scars, they grow old without beards and without any beauty, like eunuchs. They all have compact, strong limbs and thick necks, and are so monstrously ugly and misshapen, that one might take them for two-legged beasts or for the stumps, rough-hewn into images, that are used in putting sides to bridges.[*](Used for adorning the parapets of bridges. Cf. Jordanes, 24.)