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).

Raised in a laughable

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manner to this dishonour of all honours,[*](One of Ammianus’ few word-plays; cf. Sail., Hist. i. 55, 22, Maur.; Gell. xii. 9, 3 ff.; Treb. Poll., Claud. 5, 4.) he ad- dressed his supporters with servile flattery, and promised them ample riches and dignities as the first-fruits of his principate. Then he appeared in public, surrounded by a number of armed men, and now advancing with more confidence and with upraised standards, attended with a fearful din of shields mournfully clashing together, which the soldiers from fear of his being pelted from housetops with stones or pieces of tile held closely joined together over the very crests of their helmets.

And as he advanced more boldly,[*](Val. takes intimidius as equivalent to timidius, com- paring Vell. ii. 37, 2, armis infractus. ) the people neither opposed nor favoured him; nevertheless, they were aroused by the sudden charm of novelty which is inborn in most of the commons, and they were still more strongly moved because they one and all (as we have already said) hated Petronius, who was enriching himself by violence, and was reviving transactions that were long since buried, and debts of the misty past brought up again against all classes.[*](See § 7, above.)

Accordingly, when the said Procopius had mounted the tribunal,[*](It was opposite the palace near the Senate House.) and all were filled with amazement, fearing the gloomy silence, and believing (as indeed he had expected) that he had merely come to a steeper road to death, since a trembling which pervaded all his limbs hindered his speaking, he stood for a long time without a

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word. Finally, he beganwith broken and dying utterance to say a little, justifying his action by his relationship with the imperial family; then at first by the low whispers of a few, who had been hired for the purpose, later by the tumultuous acclamations of the people, he was hailed as emperor in disorderly fashion, and hastily went on to the Senate House. There finding none of the distinguished senators, but only a few persons of low rank, with rapid steps he hastened to the palace and entered it with ill-omened step.

Certainly some may wonder that so laughable a reign, rashly and blindly begun, broke out into such lamentable disasters to the state, if perchance they are unacquainted with previous instances, and think that this happened for the first time.

It was thus that Andriscus of Adramytium,[*](Cf. xiv. 11, 30.) a man born to the lowest condition, raised himself to the title of a Pseudophilippus and added to the Macedonian wars a third, full of danger. It was thus, when the emperor Macrinus was living at Antioch, that Heliogabalus Antoninus[*](Cf. Lamprid., Heliog. i. 5, Scr. Hist. Aug. ii. p. 106, note, L.C.L. ) burst forth from Emesa.[*](A city of Apamene, north of Coelesyria) Thus, by the unexpected uprising of Maximinus, Alexander[*](Alexander Severus; cf. Jul. Cap., Max. 7, 8; and Lamprid., Alex. Sev. 61.) was murdered with his mother Mamaea. Thus in Africa the elder Gordian was hurried to the throne, but when he found himself entangled in the terror of coming dangers, ended his life with the noose.[*](Capit., Gord. 16, 2; for his cenotaph, see xxiii. 5, 7, above.)

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Thus the dealers in cheap dainties, the palace attendants, or those who had once been such, and former soldiers who had now retired to a more peaceful mode of life, a part unwillingly, others voluntarily, were induced to participate in the uncertainties of this unusual enterprise.[*](I.e. to join the new emperor.) But some, thinking that anything was safer than the present condition, secretly left the city and went at rapid pace to the emperor’s camp.