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).

When the Lentienses perceived that he was determined with most earnest persistence to have their lives, they obtained mercy as the result of humble supplications, and surrendered; then giving their strong young manhood (as they were ordered) to be mingled with our recruits, they were allowed to go without punishment to their native lands.

Incredibly great energy and conspicuous rapidity were shown by Gratian, while he was hastening in another direction, when through the favour of the eternal deity he won this victory, which was at once seasonable and profitable, since it tamed the western nations. He was a young man of spendid character, eloquent, self-restrained, war-like, and merciful, and was already on his way to rivalry with the most distinguished emperors while yet a comely down

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was creeping over his cheeks, had not his natural inclination for unbecoming conduct, which was given free rein by his intimates, turned him to the frivolous pursuits of the emperor Commodus, although without that prince’s thirst for blood.

For as that emperor felt superhuman exultation because he so often killed a great number of wild animals with javelins in the presence of the people, and slaughtered with various kinds of weapons in the arena of the amphitheatre a hundred lions that were let in together, without needing to inflict a second wound,[*](See Lamprid., Commodus, 12, 12.) just so Gratian also, while he pierced sharptoothed beasts with many an arrow-shot within the enclosures which are called vivaria,[*](Parks where wild beasts were kept.) neglected as of little moment many serious occurrences; and that too at a time when, even if Marcus Antoninus had been emperor, he could not without like-minded colleagues and most prudent counsel[*](Cf. Capitolinus, Ant. Phil. 22, 3 ff.) have mitigated the grievous disasters to our country.

Gratian, then, after making the arrangements which affairs and policy throughout Gaul demanded according to the trend of the times, and punishing the traitorous targeteer who had revealed to the barbarians that the emperor was hurrying to Illyricum, hastened next to go by long marches past the castle called Felix Arbor[*](In Raetia; modern Arbon.) and past Lauriacum,[*](In Noricum Ripense; modern Lorch (Lork).) to bring aid to the hard-pressed part of the country.

At that same time Frigeridus, who was carefully making many useful plans for the general security, and was hastening to fortify the pass of Succi,[*](See xxi. 10, 2 ff., and note 1.) in order that the roving light-armed bands

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of the enemy might not, like torrents swollen by melting snow, roam at large over the northern provinces, was given a successor in the person of a general called Maurus, notoriously venal under a pretence of boldness, and changeable and unreliable in all his conduct. He it was who (as I have told in my narrative of previous events)[*](Cf. xx. 4, 18.) when Caesar Julian was in doubt about the crown to be put upon his head, with haughty cleverness took off his neck-chain and boldly offered it to him for the purpose, being at the time one of Julian’s bodyguard.

Thus even in the dizzy whirl of disasters a careful and active leader[*](Frigeridus.) was removed, whereas he should have been recalled to active service at the demand of such important affairs, even if he had long since retired to a peaceful life.