Part 24 (1/2)

13. These and a few others, justice, coming to the aid of truth, delivered from their imminent dangers. But as accusations extended more widely, involving numbers without end in their snares, many perished; some with their bodies mangled on the rack; others were condemned to death and confiscation of their goods; while Paulus kept on inventing groundless accusations, as if he had a store of lies on which to draw, and suggesting various pretences for injuring people, so that on his nod, it may be said, the safety of every one in the place depended.

14. For if any one wore on his neck a charm against the quartan ague or any other disease, or if by any information laid by his ill-wishers he was accused of having pa.s.sed by a sepulchre at nightfall, and therefore of being a sorcerer, and one who dealt in the horrors of tombs and the vain mockeries of the shades which haunt them, he was found guilty and condemned to death.

15. And the affairs went on as if people had been consulting Claros, or the oaks at Dodona, or the Delphic oracles of old fame, with a view to the destruction of the emperor.

16. Meantime, the crowd of courtiers, inventing every kind of deceitful flattery, affirmed that he would be free from all common misfortunes, a.s.serting that his fate had always shone forth with vigour and power in destroying all who attempted anything injurious to him.

17. That indeed strict investigation should be made into such matters, no one in his senses will deny; nor do we question that the safety of our lawful prince, the champion and defender of the good, and on whom the safety of all other people depends, ought to be watched over by the combined zeal of all men; and for the sake of insuring this more completely, when any treasonable enterprise is discovered, the Cornelian laws have provided that no rank shall be exempted even from torture if necessary for the investigation.

18. But it is not decent to exult unrestrainedly in melancholy events, lest the subjects should seem to be governed by tyranny, not by authority. It is better to imitate Cicero, who, when he had it in his power either to spare or to strike, preferred, as he tells us himself, to seek occasions for pardoning rather than for punis.h.i.+ng, which is characteristic of a prudent and wise judge.

19. At that time a monster, horrible both to see and to describe, was produced at Daphne, a beautiful and celebrated suburb of Antioch; namely, an infant with two mouths, two sets of teeth, two heads, four eyes, and only two very short ears. And such a mis-shapen offspring was an omen that the republic would become deformed.

20. Prodigies of this kind are often produced, presaging events of various kinds; but as they are not now publicly expiated, as they were among the ancients, they are unheard of and unknown to people in general.

XIII.

-- 1. During this period the Isaurians, who had been tranquil for some time after the transactions already mentioned, and the attempt to take the city of Seleucia, gradually reviving, as serpents come out of their holes in the warmth of spring, descended from their rocky and pathless jungles, and forming into large troops, hara.s.sed their neighbours with predatory incursions; escaping, from their activity as mountaineers, all attempts of the soldiers to take them, and from long use moving easily over rocks and through thickets.

2. So Lauricius was sent among them as governor, with the additional t.i.tle of count, to reduce them to order by fair means or foul. He was a man of sound civil wisdom, correcting things in general by threats rather than by severity, so that while he governed the province, which he did for some time, nothing happened deserving of particular notice.

[102] Patroclus, the companion of Achilles.

[103] The Trojan war. See the account of the pestilence, Homer Il. i.

50.

[104] _i.e._, ????d??, from ?????, pestilence.

Pandemic means ”attacking the whole people.” Epidemic, ”spreading from individual to individual.”

[105] Ammian alludes to the expedition of Ulysses and Diomede related by Homer, Il. viii.

[106] Ammia.n.u.s is wrong here; it was only the Thebans who were called Spa?t??, from spe???, to sow, because of the fable of the dragon's teeth sown by Cadmus; the Athenians, who claimed to be earthborn, not called Spa?t??, but a?t?????e?.

[107] A quotation from the description of the foot-race in Virgil, aen.

v. 320.

[108] Salankemen, in Hungary.

BOOK XX.

ARGUMENT.

I. Lupicinus is sent as commander-in-chief into Britain with an army to check the incursions of the Picts and Scots.--II.

Ursicinus, commander of the infantry, is attacked by calumnies, and dismissed.--III. An eclipse of the sun--A discussion on the two suns, and on the causes of solar and lunar eclipses, and the various changes and shapes of the moon.--IV. The Caesar Julian, against his will, is saluted as emperor at Paris, where he was wintering, by his Gallican soldiers, whom Constantius had ordered to be taken from him, and sent to the East to act against the Persians.--V. He harangues his soldiers.--VI. Singara is besieged and taken by Sapor: the citizens, with the auxiliary cavalry and two legions in garrison, are carried off to Persia--The town is razed to the ground.--VII. Sapor storms the town of Bezabde, which is defended by three legions; repairs it, and places in it a garrison and magazines; he also attacks the fortress of Victa, without success.--VIII. Julian writes to Constantius to inform him of what had taken place at Paris.--IX. Constantius desires Julian to be content with the t.i.tle of Caesar; but the Gallican legions unanimously refuse to allow him to be so.--X. The Emperor Julian unexpectedly attacks a Frank tribe, known as the Attuarii, on the other side of the Rhine; slays some, takes others prisoners, and grants peace to the rest, on their pet.i.tion.--XI. Constantius attacks Bezabde with his whole force, but fails--A discussion on the rainbow.