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 same prince often denounced cowards, calling such men sullied, unclean, and deserving to be thrust down below the humblest estate; and yet he himself, in the presence of empty terrors, sometimes turned abjectly pale and dreaded in his inmost soul something that did not exist at all.

It was the knowledge of this that led Remigius, marshal of the court, when he perceived that the emperor was boiling with anger at something which had occurred, to hint among other things that some outbreaks of the barbarians threatened; and when Valentinian heard this, immediately he was so overcome with fear that he became as calm and mild as Antoninus the Good[*](I.e., Antoninus Pius; cf. xvi. 1, 4.) himself.

He never intentionally chose cruel judges, but if he had learned that Those whomhehad once advanced[*](To that rank.) were acting cruelly,

v3.p.369

he maintained that he had found men like Lycurgus[*](Not the Spartan lawgiver, but a contemporary of Demosthenes; see xxii. 9, 9, note.) and Cassius,[*](Cf. xxii. 9, 9, note; and for Cato and Cassius, xxvi. 10, 10.) those ancient pillars of justice; and he often urged them in writing to punish even light offences with all severity.