Res Gestae

In the year following these events, Gratianus was made consul as the colleague of Aequitius; and Valentinian, who after devastating several cantons of the Alamanni was building a fortification near Basle, which the neighbours call Robur,[*](Near modern Hüningen.) received the report of the prefect Probus, telling of the devastation in Illyricum.[*](By the Quadi; xxix. 6, 6, 8.)

On reading this with careful attention, as became a cautious general, he was distracted by anxious reflections and sending the secretary Paternianus, gave the matter the most searching investigation. As soon as he received through him a true account of what had happened, he hastened to set out at once, in order (as he intended) to crush by the first clash of his arms the savages who had ventured to violate our frontier.

But since autumn was waning and many difficulties stood in the way, all the principal men at the court strove by entreaties and prayers[*](Cf. Ter., Andr., 592, gnatam ut det oro, vixque id exoro. ) to hold him back until the beginning of spring. In the first place, they urged that the roads, hardened with frost, where neither any growth of grass would be found for fodder nor anything else fit for the use of the army, could not be penetrated. In the second place, they set before him the alleged savagery of the kings bordering on Gaul, and most of all of Macrianus, who was formidable, and (as was well known) had been left

Calling to mind these things and adding other salutary advice, they led the emperor to a better opinion, and at once (as was for the advantage of the state) the said king was courteously summoned to the vicinity of Mayence, being himself also inclined (as was evident) to accepting a treaty. And he arrived enormously puffed up in every way, as if he expected to be the supreme arbiter of peace, and on the day set for the conference, with head high uplifted, he stood at the very edge of the Rhine while the clashing shields of his countrymen thundered all about him.

On the other side the Augustus embarked on some river-boats,[*](Perhaps the same as the lusoriae naves of xvii. 2, 3, note; xviii. 2, 12.) himself also hedged by a throng of military officers and conspicuous amid the brilliance of flashing standards, and cautiously[*](Cf. cunctator et tutus, xxvii. 10, 10.) approached the shore. Finally, the savages ceased their immoderate gesticulation and barbaric tumult, and after much had been said and heard on both sides, friendship was confirmed between them[*](Cf. in medio, xviii. 5, 7, quodam medio fetiali. ) by the sanctity of an oath.

When this was accomplished, the king who had caused the disturbances withdrew pacified, henceforth to be our ally; and after that up to the very end of bis life he gave proof by noble conduct of a spirit of steadfast loyalty.

He found his death later in the land of the Franks; for while amid murderous devastation he penetrated that country too eagerly, he was lured into an ambush by the warlike king Mallobaudes and perished. But after

This is what took place throughout Gaul and Before[*](378 A.D.) the northern part of the empire. But in the regions of the East, amid the profound quiet of foreign affairs, destructive internal corruption was increasing through the friends and intimates of Valens, with whom advantage prevailed over honour. For diligent efforts were exerted to turn the emperor, as a severe man and eager to hear cases at law, from his desire to act as judge; for fear that as in the times of Julian,[*](Cf. xxii. 9, 9 ff.) if the defence of innocence should revive, the arrogance of powerful men, which under the licence that they had assumed was in the habit of always reaching out farther, might be checked.

On these and similar grounds many united in a common attempt at dissuasion and in particular the praetorian prefect Modestus,[*](Cf. xix. 12, 6. He was general in the Orient under Constantius and was made praetorian prefect by Julian.) a man wholly subjected to the influence of the eunuchs of the court, of a boorish nature refined by no reading of the ancient writers. He, wearing a forced and deceptive expression, declared that the trivialities of private cases at law were beneath the dignity of the imperial majesty. Accordingly Valens, thinking that the examination of swarms[*](See p. 330, note 1.) of legal cases was devised to humble[*](Cf. humilitati, xxix. 2, 16.) the loftiness of the royal power, in accordance with the advice of Modestus, abstained from it

This trade of forensic oratory the great Plato defined as πολιτικῆς μορίου εἴδωλον (that is, the shadow of a small part of the science of government[*](Plato, Gorgias, 463 b. For amplitudo Platonis, cf. xxii. 16, 22, sermonum amplitudine lovis aemulus Platon. ) ) or as the fourth part of flattery;[*](I.e., the lowest of the four parts.) but Epicurus counts it among evil arts, calling it κακοτεχνία.[*](The art of deceiving; cf. Quintilian, ii. 15, 2; 20, 2. Epicurus denied that it was an art.) Tisias[*](One of the earliest rhetoricians, a teacher of Gorgias; see Cic., Brut. 12, 46.) says that it is the artist of persuasion, and Gorgias of Leontini agrees with him.

This art, thus defined by the men of old, the cunning of certain Orientals raised to a degree hateful to good men, for which reason it is even confined by the restraints of a time fixed beforehand.[*](So, at Athens, to a space of time marked by the emptying of the clepsydra, or water-clock.) Therefore after having described in a very few words its unworthiness, with which I became acquainted while I was living in those parts, I shall return to the course of the narrative with which I began.

Formerly judgement-seats gained glory through the support of old-time refinement, when orators of fiery eloquence,[*](Cf. concitatus orator, xiv. 7, 18.) devoted to learned studies, were eminent for talent and justice, and for the fluency and many adornments of their diction; for example Demosthenes, to hear whom, when he was going to speak, as the Attic records testify, the people were wont to flock together from all Greece[*](Cf. Cic., Brutus, 84, 289.) ; and