Res Gestae

These two then, as if bewailing the fate by which they pretended to be overwhelmed, exaggerated the cruelty of the judge and often repeated the assertion that the accused had no other means of saving their lives than by charging men of high rank with serious crimes; for they declared that by involving such men in the same accusations with themselves they could easily secure an acquittal.

Because of this, with a ruthlessness now passing all bounds, the hands of very many were bound in fetters, and men of noble birth were seen in mourning garb and in distress. And none of them could rightly be blamed, since very often when waiting upon him with bodies bent so as almost to touch the ground, they constantly heard that brigand with the heart of a wild beast shout that no one could be found innocent without his consent.

Such words, which accomplishment quickly followed, would surely have terrified men like Numa Pompilius, and a Cato. For, in fact, the business was conducted in such a way that some people could not even contemplate the ills of others with dry eyes, a thing which often happens in the many difficult trials of life.

Nevertheless, the iron-hearted judge, often as he deviated from law and justice, was endurable in what may be called one special thing. For at times he could be prevailed upon to show mercy to some; although this, we read in the following passage in Cicero,[*](Ad Quint. Frat. i. 1, 13, 39.) is almost a vice: For, he says, when anger is implacable, there is extreme severity; but if it yields to entreaties, the greatest inconstancy: yet the latter, as a choice of evils, is to be preferred to severity.

After this, Maximinus received a successor,[*](Ursicinus; see § 44, below.) and was summoned to the emperor’s court, as Leo[*](Cf. 1, 12, above.) had been before him; and there, being promoted to the praetorian prefecture, he was no whit milder, but like the basilisk,[*](Cf. xxii. 15, 27, and Spenser, F.Q. iv. 8, 39: Like as the Basiliske, of serpents seede,From powrefull eyes close venim doth conveyInto the lookers hart, and killeth farre away.) was harmful even from a distance.

At that time, or not much earlier, the brooms with which the assembly-hall of the nobles was swept were seen to bloom, and this was an omen that some men of the most despised station would be raised to high rank in the offices of state.

Although it is high time to return to the course of the history which we have begun, yet, in order not to interfere with the connection of events, I shall linger over a few of the wrongful acts committed by the iniquity of the vice-prefects in the city, since it was according to the nod and wish of Maximinus that they were done by those same subordinates—I might say attendants.

After him came Ursicinus, inclined to milder measures; he, wishing to be prudent and kindly, had referred to the Court the information that Esaias (with others who had been imprisoned because of adulterous relations with Rufina) was trying to bring a charge of treason against her husband, Marcellus, a former agent of the state. In consequence, Ursicinus was despised as inactive and unfit for the vigorous prosecution of such matters, and was forced to withdraw from his deputyship.

To him succeeded Simplicius[*](In 375.) of Hemona, a former

For vying in bloody rivalry with Maximinus, as his leader,[*](Ammianus uses antipilanus in the sense of antesignanus; for its usual meaning see xvi. 12, 20, note.) he strove to outdo him in cutting the sinews of distinguished families, imitating Busiris of old, and Antaeus and Phalaris[*](Cf. xxvi. 10, 5; he had a brazen bull constructed, in which he burned his victims alive; the first of these was its inventor Perillus, the last Phalaris himself.) to such a degree that he seemed to lack only the Agrigentine bull of the last-named.

Amid these and such acts so perpetrated a matron called Hesychia, who because of an attempted crime was committed to an official’s attendant to be guarded at his house, and was in fear of much cruel treatment, pressed her face in the feather bed on which she was lying and so stopped her nose and her breath and gave up the ghost.

There was added to these another no less cruel evil. For Eumenius and Abienus, both of senatorial rank, being accused under Maximinus of improper conduct with Fausiana, a woman of position, after the death of Victorinus, under whose protection they lived with less anxiety, terrified by Simplicius’ coming who with threats planned no less

But after Fausiana had been found guilty, a charge was made against them also; but though summoned by edicts,[*](I.e., by offers of rewards for their arrest) they kept themselves in still closer concealment, and Abienus remained hidden for a long time in the house of Anepsia. But as unexpected chances often aggravate lamentable disasters, a slave of Anepsia, Sapaudulus by name, seized with resentment because his wife[*](Properly, concubine.) had been flogged, went by night to Simplicius and reported the matter; then attendants were sent and dragged the accused, whose whereabouts had been pointed out, from their hiding-places.

And Abienus, assailed with an additional accusation of improper relations which he was said to have had with Anepsia, was punished with death. But the woman, that she might have strong hope of retaining her life by putting off her punishment, declared that she had been worked upon by evil arts and had suffered violence in the house of Aginatius.

Simplicius gave the emperor a spiteful account of what had been done, and Maximinus, who was at court, and, for the reason which I have given above,[*](See §§ 31 ff.) was hostile to Aginatius, while his hatred was set ablaze with his rise in power, strongly urged the emperor to give him a warrant for putting Aginatius to death; and this the mad and powerful instigator easily brought to pass.

But Maximinus, fearing the weight of greater hatred, if a man of patrician stock should die by the sentence of Simplicius, who was his adviser and his friend, kept back the emperor’s order for some time, in perplexity and doubt as to whom he would find most trustworthy and efficient in carrying out

At last, since like and like readily flock together,[*](Cf. Homer, Od. xvii. 218; Plato, Sym. 195 b, which Cicero, De Sen. 3, 7, renders by pares vetere proverbio cum paribus facillime congregantur.) a Gaul called Doryphorianus was found, reckless to the point of insanity, on whom, since he promised to accomplish the business in a short time, he arranged to have the post of deputy conferred. Accordingly, he gave him with the epistle of Augustus[*](I.e., the warrant conferring the office. According to Wagner commonitorium is the warrant, but the meaning given in the text seems more natural.) a letter of advice instructing the savage but inexperienced man how he might quickly and without any hindrance destroy Aginatius, who, if he gained any possible respite, would perhaps make his escape.

Doryphorianus, as had been ordered, hastened to Rome by long days’ journeys, and at the beginning of his administration[*](As vicarius. ) cast about with great energy, to see by what act of violence he could without anyone’s help destroy a senator of conspicuous lineage. And on learning that Aginatius had long since been found, and was under guard in his own villa, he arranged personally to examine him, and Anepsia as well, as the chief of the guilty persons, in the midst of the horrors of night, when men’s minds are commonly dulled in the bonds of terrors: as among countless other instances is shown by Homer’s Ajax,[*](Iliad, xvii. 645 ff.) who wished rather to die by daylight than endure the additional suffering of dread by night.