Res Gestae

What, then, remains but to meet the storms that have been raised, with the purpose of crushing by the remedies of speed the madness of the growing war before it attains greater strength? For there is

For, as my mind presages, and as Justice promises, who will aid right purposes, I give you my word that, when we come hand to hand, they will be so benumbed with terror as to be able to endure neither the flashing light of your eyes nor the first sound of your battle-cry.

After these words all were led to his opinion, and brandishing their spears in anger they first replied with many expressions of good will, and then asked to be led at once against the rebel. This mark of favour turned the emperor’s fear into joy; he at once dissolved the assembly and ordered Arbitio, whom he already knew from former experiences to be successful before all others in quelling civil wars, to go before him on his march with the lancers, the mattiarii,[*](They seem to have got their name from the mattium, a kind of weapon which they used, of which nothing is known. They are mentioned in connection with the lancers also in xxxi. 13, 8.) and the companies of light armed troops; also Gomoarius with the Laeti,[*](Cf. xvi. 11, 4; xx. 8, 13.) to oppose the coming advance of the enemy in the pass of Succi, a man chosen before others because he was a bitter enemy of Julian, who had treated him with contempt in Gaul.

In this welter of adverse events Constantius’ fortune, already wavering and at a standstill, showed clearly by signs almost as plain as words, that a crisis in his life was at hand. For at night he was alarmed by apparitions, and when he was not yet wholly sunk in sleep, the ghost of his father seemed to hold out to him a fair child; and when he took it and set it in his lap, it shook from him the ball[*](This emblem of power is found in the statues and on the coins of the later emperors. See Frontispiece Vol. III.) which he held in his right hand and threw it to a great distance. And this foretold a change in the state, although the seers gave reassuring answers.

After that he admitted to his more intimate attendants that, as though forsaken, he ceased to see a kind of secret something[*](aliquid suggests quidam eximia magnitudine et forma in Suet., Jul. 22, but is much more vague—hardly more than a feeling of the presence of some supernatural power.) which he used to think occasionally appeared to him, though somewhat dimly; and it was supposed that a sort of guardian spirit, assigned to protect his life, had deserted him, since he was destined quickly to leave this world.