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).

Then Symmachus, an advocate[*](At this time called scholasticus. ) and a Jew, at the order of a tyrant rather than a king, announced on an appointed day, which was a Wednesday, the 26th of August, in the fourth indiction,[*](When the price of grain at Rome seemed likely to rise too high, contributions of grain were demanded of the provinces in addition to the regular tribute. These were called annonae (Dig. xxvi. 7, 32, 6), indictiones temporariae (Dig. xxxiii. 2, 28) or indictiones (Pliny, Paneg. 29). Their scope was extended in the fourth century and regulated by a census of 289. Diocletian made them annual, and after 297 held a new census, to be repeated every five years, and combined every three census-periods into a fifteen-year cycle, counting the years from one to fifteen and then beginning again. This arrangement was wrongly said to have begun in 312, for papyrus receipts show that the cycle began in 297—298, coinciding with Diocletian’s stay in Egypt, when he personally conducted the siege of Alexandria, which ended early in 297 (Eutr. ix. 23). The fifteen-year cycle probably had some connection with Egypt. Augustus, or at latest Tiberius, established a rating there every fourteen years, because the fourteenth year was the end of puberty and the beginning of liability to taxation. The system was extended from Egypt to other provinces before the middle of the fourth century. In Italy the cycle began on September 1st (Ambros. Noë et area 17, 60, Migne, 14, 390, a Septembri mense annus videatur incipere, sicut indictionum praesentium usus ostendit). An inscr. of 552 gives August 11th as in fine ind(ictionis) xv., De Rossi, Inscr. Christ. urbis Romae, I. 979; and it was the same for the greater part (if not the whole) of the empire. September 1st was chosen as nearest to the beginning of the month in Egypt (Aug. 29). The indictiones were used as a means of dating in 307, at first in Egypt. In other provinces first in 359. In Italy first about 380 (Seeck in Pauly-Wiss., ix. (1916), 1327 ff.) under the consulship of Olybrius,[*](See 11, 54, note 3.) that

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on the following Sabbath the Arians[*](A sect founded by Arius, an elder of Alexandria in the fourth century. He held that the Son was created by the Father, and subordinate to the Father, although possessing a similar nature; thus he practically denied the divinity of Christ. Although this doctrine was condemned by the Council of Nicaea in 325, it nevertheless had many adherents for a long time thereafter. On the spelling, see note on § 48, above.) would take possession of the Catholic churches.

But He who does not allow his faithful worshippers to be oppressed by unbelievers soon brought upon Theodoric the same punishment that Arius, the founder of his religion, had suffered; for the king was seized with a diarrhea, and after three days of open bowels lost both his throne and his life on the very same day on which he rejoiced to attack the churches.[*](A.D. 526.)

But before breathing his last he named his grandson Athalaric as his successor. During his lifetime he had made himself a mausoleum[*](This is still in existence at Ravenna, although stripped of its external decorations.) of squared blocks of stone, a work of extraordinary size, and sought out a huge rock to place upon it.