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).

One of their nation, who was serving among the emperor’s armour-bearers, returned to his home because of pressing business, and being a loose talker, when many asked him what was going

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on in the palace, he told them that Gratian, summoned by his uncle Valens, would presently march towards the Orient, in order that with doubled forces he might repel the peoples dwelling on the border, who had conspired to destroy the Roman state.

The Lentienses greedily seized upon this information, and, looking on these acts from the point of view of neighbours of the frontier, and being swift and hasty in action, they formed themselves into predatory bands, and in the month of February tried[*](378 A.D.) to cross the Rhine, which was sufficiently frozen over to be passable. But the Celts, who were encamped near by with the Petulantes,[*](Often mentioned with the Celts; for a possible explanation of this designation of a legion made up of foreign troops, see xx, 4, 2, note 5.) with mighty strength turned them back with great slaughter, yet not without loss to themselves.