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).

But Valentinian also was rightly dreaded by them, both because he increased the armies with a strong reinforcement and because he so fortified both banks of the Rhine with lofty castles and strongholds, that nowhere should an enemy be able to hurl himself at our territories unobserved.[*](xxviii. 2, 1.)

And to pass over many things which he did with the authority of an established ruler, and the reforms that he effected either personally or through energetic generals, after admitting his son Gratianus to a share in his power, he secretly, since he could not do so openly, caused Vithicabius, king of the Alamanni,[*](Cf. xxvii. 10, 3.) son of Vadomarius, a young man in the first bloom of manhood, to be stabbed, because he

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was rousing his people to rebellion and war. And joining battle with the Alamanni near a place called Solicinium,[*](Part of Schwetzingen; cf. xxvii. 10, 8.) where, after falling into an ambuscade and all but losing his life, he could have utterly destroyed their entire army, had not swift flight saved a few of them under cover of darkness.