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).

Ruricius was executed at Sitifis, the rest were punished at Utica through sentence of the deputy-governor Crescens. Flaccianus, however, before the death of the other envoys, was heard by the deputy and the general; and when he stoutly defended

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his life, he was all but killed by the angry soldiers, who rushed upon him with shouts and abusive language; for they declared against him that the Tripolitani could not possibly be defended for the reason that they themselves had declined to furnish what was necessary for the campaign.

And for this reason Flaccianus was imprisoned, until the emperor, who had been consulted about him, should make up his mind what ought to be done. But he bribed his guards—so it was permissible to believe—and made his escape to the city of Rome, where he kept in hiding until he passed away by a natural death.

In consequence of this remarkable end of the affair, Tripolis, though harassed by disasters from without and from within, remained silent, but not without defence; for the eternal eye of Justice watched over her, as well as the last curses[*](Cf. 1, 57, note 2.) of the envoys and the governor. For long afterwards the[*](376 A.D.) following event came to pass: Palladius was dismissed from service, and stript of the haughtiness with which he swelled, and retired to a life of inaction.

And when Theodosius, that famous leader of armies, had come into Africa to put an end to the dangerous attempts of Firmus,[*](Cf. xxix. 5.) and, as he had been ordered, examined the moveable property of the outlawed Romanus, there was found also among his papers the letter of one Meterius, containing the words, Meterius to Romanus his Lord and patron, and at the end, after much matter that would here be irrelevant: The disgraced Palladius salutes you, and says that he was deposed for no other reason than that in the cause of the people of Tripolis he spoke to the sacred ears what was not true.

When this letter had

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been sent to the Palace and read, Meterius, on being seized by order of Valentinian, admitted that the letter was his. Therefore Palladius was ordered to be produced, but thinking of the mass of crimes that he had concocted, at a halting-station, as darkness was coming on, noticing the absence of the guards, who on a festal day of the Christian religion[*](Vigils were held on various sacred anniversaries, e.g., on the night of the birth of the Saviour, Lact., Div. Inst., vii. 19, 3: at Easter, Tertull., Ad Uxorem, ii. 4; etc.) were spending the whole night in church, he knotted a noose about his neck and strangled himself.

When this favourable turn of fortune was fully known and the instigator of the awful troubles put to death, Erechthius and Aristomenes, who, when they learned that it had been ordered that their tongues should be cut out,[*](See 6, 20, above.) as over-lavishly used, had withdrawn to far remote and hidden places, now hastened from concealment; and when the emperor Gratian—for Valentinian had died—was given trustworthy information of the abominable deception, they were sent for trial to the proconsul Hesperius[*](In 376.) and the deputy Flavianus.[*](In 382 and 391 he was praetorian prefect; and according to Symmachus, 2, 82, 83, he received the consulship, apparently from the usurper Eugenius.) These officials, being men of impartial justice combined with most rightful authority, having put Caecilius to the torture, learned from his open confession that he himself had persuaded his citizens to make trouble for the envoys by false statements. This investigation was followed by a report, which disclosed the fullest confirmation of the acts which had been committed; to this no reply was made.

And that these dramas should leave no awful[*](370 ff. A.D.) tragic effect untried, this also was added after the

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curtain had dropped.[*](See xvi. 6, 3, note; here the meaning is different, since what follows was the exodium, or afterpiece, at the end of the tragedy. Hence the curtain was not put away, but raised (or, as we should say, lowered).) Romanus, setting out to the Palace, brought with him Caecilius, who intended to accuse the judges of having been biased in favour of the province; and being received with favour by Merobaudes,[*](Consul in 377; he was then perhaps court-marshal.) he had sought that some more witnesses whom he needed should be produced.

When these had come to Milan, and had shown by credible evidence that they had been brought there under false pretences to satisfy a grudge, they were discharged and returned to their homes. Nevertheless, in Valentinianus’ lifetime, in consequence of what we have stated above, Remigius also after retiring into private life strangled himself, as I shall show in the proper place.[*](xxx. 2, 10 ff.)