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).

Now it chanced that Justinus, who was commander of the watch, on coming to a place whither he had been directed to go[*](Or: arriving when he had been summoned . . .) by the emperor, was the first to be announced to him by his head-chamberlain. And when the king knew this, he began to thank God for having deigned to reveal to him who his successor should be.

These words[*](Of the man seen in his dream, see § 75.) he kept to himself, but one day, when the emperor was in a procession, and Justinus wished to pass along quickly on one side of the emperor, in order to put his followers in line, he trod on the emperor’s cloak.

But the emperor only said to him: What is your hurry?[*](Thus implying that Justinus would succeed him.) Then in the last days of his reign the devil tempted him, wishing him to follow the Eunomian sect;[*](The followers of Eunomius, a native of Cappadocia (died about 392). He became Bishop of Cyzicus, and was an extreme Arian.) but the people of the faith checked him and even cried out to him in the church: You shall not hurl your puny lance against the Trinity. Not long afterwards Anastasius was taken ill and confined to his bed in the city of Constantinople, and ended his last day.

Now King Theodoric was without training in letters, and of such dull comprehension that for ten years of his reign he had been wholly unable to learn the four letters necessary for endorsing his edicts. For that reason he had a golden plate with

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slits made, containing the four letters legi;[*](I have read (it). Or perhaps θεοδ; see regis, crit. note 2, and supply nominis. ) then, if he wished to endorse anything, he placed the plate over the paper and drew his pen through the slits, so that only this subscription of his was seen.[*](The same story is told by Procopius, Anecdota, 6, 15, of the emperor Justinus.)

Then Theodoric made Eutharicus[*](He was the king’s son-in-law, husband of Amalasuntha.) consul and celebrated triumphs at Rome and at Ravenna. This Eutharicus was an excessively rough man, and an enemy to the Catholic faith.

After this, while Theodoric was remaining at Verona through fear of the neighbouring peoples, strife arose between the Christians and the Jews of the city of Ravenna; accordingly the Jews, being unwilling to be baptised, often in sport threw the holy water that was offered to them into the water of the river. Because of this the people were fired with anger, and without respect for the king, for Eutharicus, or for Peter, who was bishop at the time, they rose against the synagogues and presently set them on fire. And this same thing happened in a similar affair at Rome.