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).

After this business had been thus attended to, we came by long marches to Antioch; where for successive days, as though the divinity were angered, many fearful portents were seen, which those skilled in such signs declared would have sad results.

For the statue of the Caesar Maximianus, which stood in the vestibule of the royal palace, suddenly dropped the brazen ball, in the form of the globe of heaven, which it was holding,[*](Cf. xxi. 14, 1, note.) the beams of the council hall gave forth an awful creaking, and in broad daylight comets were seen, about which the views of those versed in natural history are at variance.[*](Cf. Pliny, N.H. ii. 91 ff.)

For some think that they are so called because they are numerous stars united in one body,[*](Democritus and Anaxagoras, cf. Arist., Meteor. 1, 1; opposed by Sen. Nat., Quaest. vii. 7.)

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and send out writhing fires resembling hair.[*](The view of Aristotle and the Peripatetics; cometa is from coma (Greek κομη), hair. This opinion, which is nearest the truth, is attributed by Aristotle and Plutarch to Pythagoras.) Others believe that they take fire from the dryer exhalations of the earth, which gradually rise higher. Others again think that the rays streaming from the sun are prevented by the interposition of a heavier cloud from going downward, and when the brightness is suffused through the thick substance, it presents to men’s eyes a kind of star-spangled light. Yet others have formed the opinion that this phenomenon occurs when an unusually high cloud is lit up by the nearness of the eternal fires, or at any rate, that comets are stars like the rest, the appointed times of whose rising and setting[*](I.e. their appearance and disappearance.) are not understood by human minds. Many other theories about comets are to be found in the writings of those who are skilled in knowledge of the universe; but from discussing these I am prevented by my haste to continue my narrative.

The emperor lingered for a time at Antioch, bowed down by the weight of divers cares, but pursued by an extraordinary desire for getting out of the place. Accordingly, he left there on a day in the dead of winter, sparing neither horse nor man, although many signs (as has been said) forbade, and entered Tarsus, the famous city of Cilicia, of whose origin I have already spoken.[*](Cf. xiv. 8, 3.)

Though in excessive haste to leave that place, he determined to adorn the tomb of Julian,[*](See 9, 12, above. According to Zonaras and others, Julian’s body was later taken to Constantinople.) situated just outside the walls on the road which leads to the passes of Mount Taurus. But his remains and ashes, if anyone then

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showed sound judgement, ought not to be looked on by the Cydnus,[*](Cf. Curt. iii. 4, 8.) although it is a beautiful and clear stream, but to perpetuate the glory of his noble deeds they should be laved by the Tiber, which cuts through the eternal city and flows by the memorials of the deified emperors of old.

After this the emperor left Tarsus, and making long marches arrived at Tyana, a town of Cappadocia, where on their return the secretary Procopius and the tribune Memoridus[*](They had been sent to Illyricum and Gaul; see 8, 8, above.) met him. They gave him an account of their missions, beginning (as order demanded) with the entry of Lucillianus with the tribunes Seniauchus and Valentinianus, whom he had taken with him, into Mediolanum; but on learning that Malarichus refused to accept the position[*](Of general of the cavalry; see 8, 11, above.) he had gone at full speed to Rheims.