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 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
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.
Presently the Jews hastened to Verona, where the king was, and there the head-chamberlain Triwane acted on their behalf; he, too, as a heretic favoured the Jews, and cajoled the king into taking action against the Christians. Accordingly Theodoric, on the presumption that they had resorted to arson, presently gave orders that the whole Roman[*](The Gothic population was not included, since they had taken no part in the burning.) population should furnish money for the rebuilding of the
Shortly after that the devil found an opportunity to steal for his own a man who was ruling the state well and without complaint. For presently Theodoric gave orders that an oratory of St. Stephen, that is, a high altar, beside the springs in a suburb of the city of Verona, should be destroyed. He also forbade any Roman to carry arms, except a small pen-knife.