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).

Finally, the profession of advocate has, with the rest, this serious and dangerous evil, which is native to almost all litigants, that although their cases may be lost by a thousand accidents, they

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think their ill-success lies wholly in the ability of their advocates, and they are accustomed to attribute the outcome of every contest to them; and they vent their anger not on the weakness of their case or the frequent injustice of the magistrate who decides it, but only on their defenders. But let us return to the point from which we made the digression.

When spring was already ripening,[*](Ammianus takes up his narrative from the end375 A.D. of chapter 3.) Valentinian moved from Trier and hastened by quick marches along the familiar roads; and when he came to the regions for which he was aiming, he was met by a deputation of the Sarmatians,[*](Cf. xxvi. 4, 5; xxix. 6, 15.) who threw themselves at his feet and begged in peaceful terms that his visit might be favourable and merciful to them, since he would find that their countrymen were neither participants in, nor aware of, any outrage.

When they often repeated these same statements, after mature deliberation the emperor made this answer: that these acts must be investigated, in the place where they were said to have been committed, and punished in the light of the most reliable evidence. And when thereafter he entered Carnuntum,[*](Modern Haimburg, in Pannonia, on the Danube; near Vienna.) a town of the prefecture of Illyricum, now indeed deserted and in ruins, but very convenient for the leader of an army, he proceeded (whenever chance or design gave

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the opportunity) to check the attacks of the savages from a station near by.

And though he was a terror to all while his arrival was waited for, since he was likely in bitter anger to order at once the punishment of officials who through perfidy or desertion had exposed that side of Pannonia, yet on his arrival he became so mild that he neither made inquiry into the murder of King Gabinius,[*](Cf. xxix. 6, 5.) nor carefully investigated the wounds branded on the body of the state to learn through whose negligence or guilt they had come about. And indeed it was his way to be severe in punishing common people, but more lenient towards personages of higher rank, even when they deserved a severe rebuke in harsh words.

Probus alone he attacked with bitter[*](Cf. furori incitatissimo, xxxi. 2, 11.) hatred, never ceasing to threaten him from the first time he had seen him, nor showing him any mildness; and for this conduct there were obvious weighty reasons. Probus had then, not for the first time, attained the rank of praetorian prefect, and in his longing to prolong his tenure of office in many ways (I only wish that they had been justifiable), he relied more on flattery than on worth otherwise than the glory of his stock[*](He was decended from the family of the Anicii; cf. xvi. 8, 13.) admonished him.