Res Gestae

O most honoured judges, we constructed from laurel twigs under dire auspices this unlucky little table which you see, in the likeness of the Delphic tripod, and having duly consecrated it by

It was placed in the middle of a house purified thoroughly with Arabic perfumes; on it was placed a perfectly round plate made of various metallic substances. Around its outer rim the written forms of the twenty-four letters of the alphabet were skilfully engraved, separated from one another by carefully measured spaces.

Then a man clad in linen garments, shod also in linen sandals and having a fillet wound about his head, carrying twigs from a tree of good omen, after propitiating in a set formula the divine power from whom predictions come, having full knowledge of the ceremonial, stood over the tripod as priest and set swinging a hanging ring fitted to a very fine linen[*](Valesius read carbasio, which would correspond to the linen garments and sandals; the Thes. Ling. Lat. reads carpathio = linteo. ) thread and consecrated with mystic arts. This ring, passing over the designated intervals in a series of jumps, and falling upon this and that letter which detained it, made hexameters corresponding with the questions and completely finished in feet and rhythm, like the Pythian verses which we read, or those given out from the oracles of the Branchidae.[*](The descendants of a certain Branchus, a favourite of Apollo, who were at first in charge of the oracle at Branchidae, later called oraculum Apollinis Didymei (Mela, i. 17, 86), in the Milesian territory; cf. Hdt. i. 1 57. The rings had magic powers, cf. Cic., De Off. iii. 9, 38; Pliny, N. H. xxxiii. 8. Some writers give a different account of the method of divination used by the conspirators.)

When we then and there inquired, what man will succeed the present emperor?, since it was said that he would be perfect in every particular,

And when Hilarius had laid the knowledge of the whole matter so clearly before the eyes of the judges, he kindly added that Theodorus was completely ignorant of what was done. After this, being asked whether they had, from belief in the oracles which they practised, known beforehand what they were now suffering, they uttered those familiar verses which clearly announced that this work of inquiring into the superhuman would soon be fatal to them, but that nevertheless the Furies, breathing out death and fire, threatened also the emperor himself and his judges. Of these verses it will suffice to quote the last three:

1. Avenged will be your blood. Against them too
2. Tisiphonê’s deep wrath arms evil fate,
3. While Ares rages on the plain of Mimas.

Later, in order wholly to lay bare this factory of the crimes that had been meditated, a group of distinguished men was led in, comprising the very heads of the undertaking. But since each one had regard for nothing but himself, and tried to shift his ruin to another, by permission of the inquisitors Theodorus

Then Euserius, under bloody torture, made the same confession, but Theodorus was convicted by a letter of his own written in ambiguous and tortuous language to Hilarius, in which he did not hesitate about the matter, but only sought an opportunity to attain his desire, having already a strong confidence begotten from the soothsayers.

When these had been removed after this information, Eutropius,[*](Praetorian prefect in 380 and 381; whether he was the same as the author of the Epitome of Roman History is uncertain.) then governing Asia with proconsular authority, was summoned on the charge of complicity in the plot. But he escaped without harm, saved by the philosopher Pasiphilus, who, although cruelly tortured to induce him to bring about the ruin of Eutropius through a false charge, could not be turned from the firmness of a steadfast mind.

There was, besides these, the philosopher Simonides, a young man, it is true, but of anyone within our memory the strictest in his principles. When he was charged with having heard of the affair through Fidustius and saw that the trial depended, not on the truth, but on the nod of one man, he said that he had learned of the predictions, but as a man of firm purpose he kept the secret which had been confided to him.

After all these matters had been examined with sharp eye, the emperor, in answer to the question put by the judges, under one decree ordered the execution of all of the accused; and in the presence of a vast throng, who could hardly look upon the dreadful sight without inward shuddering and burdening the air with laments—for the woes of individuals were regarded as common to all—they were all led away and wretchedly strangled except Simonides; him alone that cruel author of the verdict, maddened by his steadfast firmness, had ordered to be burned alive.

Simonides, however, ready to escape from life as from a cruel tyrant, and laughing at the sudden disasters of human destiny, stood unmoved amid the flames; imitating that celebrated philosopher Peregrinus, surnamed Proteus,[*](According to Lucian, who wrote his biography, he was a Cynic; he was born at Parion on the Hellespont, and died in Olympiad 236 (A.D. 165).) who, when he had determined to depart from life, at the quinquennial Olympic festival, in the sight of all Greece, mounted a funeral pyre which he himself had constructed and was consumed by the flames.

And after him, in the days that followed, a throng of men of almost all ranks, whom it would be difficult to enumerate by name, involved in the snares of calumny, wearied the arms of the executioners after being first crippled by rack, lead, and scourge. Some were punished without breathing-space or delay, while inquiry was being made whether they deserved punishment; everywhere the scene was like a slaughtering of cattle.

Then, innumerable writings and many heaps of volumes were hauled out from various houses and under the eyes of the judges were burned in heaps as being unlawful, to allay the indignation at the

And not so very long afterward that famous philosopher Maximus, a man with a great reputation for learning, through whose rich discourses Julian stood out as an emperor well stored as regards knowledge,[*](Cf. xxii. 7, 3; xxv. 3, 23; he plays a prominent part in Ibsen’s Emperor and Galilean. ) was alleged to have heard the verses of the aforesaid oracle. And he admitted that he had learnt of them, but out of regard for his philosophical principles had not divulged secrets, although he had volunteered the prediction that the consultors of the future would themselves perish by capital punishment. Thereupon he was taken to his native city of Ephesus and there beheaded;[*](By order of Festus, proconsul of Asia.) and taught by his final danger he came to know that the injustice of a judge was more formidable than any accusation.

Diogenes also was entangled in the snares of an impious falsehood. He was a man born of noble stock, eminent for his talent, his fearless eloquence, and his charm; he was a former governor of Bithynia, but was now punished with death in order that his rich patrimony might be plundered.

Lo! even Alypius also, former vice-governor of Britain,[*](Cf. xxiii. 1, 2, end.) a man amiable and gentle, after living in leisure and retirement—since even as far as this had injustice stretched her hand—was made to wallow in utmost wretchedness; he was accused with his son Hierocles, a young man of good character, as guilty of magic, on the sole evidence of a certain Diogenes, a man of low origin, who was tortured with every degree of butchery, to lead him to give testimony agreeable to the emperor, or rather to the instigator

During all this time, the notorious Palladius, the fomenter[*](Or curdler. Literally the rennet. ) of all these troubles, who, as we said at first,[*](1, 5.) was taken in custody by Fortunatianus, being by the very lowness of his condition ready to plunge into anything, by heaping disaster on disaster, had drenched the whole empire with grief and tears.

For having gained leave to name all whom he desired, without distinction of fortune, as dabbling in forbidden practices, like a hunter skilled in observing the secret tracks of wild beasts, he entangled many persons in his lamentable nets, some of them on the ground of having stained themselves with the knowledge of magic, others as accomplices of those who were aiming at treason.

And in order that even wives should have no time to weep over the misfortunes of their husbands, men were immediately sent to put the seal[*](Until the owner should be acquitted or condemned; in the latter case his house and property went to the fiscus. ) on the houses, and during the examination of the furniture of the householder who had been condemned, to introduce privily old-wives’ incantations or unbecoming

As a result, throughout the oriental provinces owners of books, through fear of a like fate, burned their entire libraries; so great was the terror that had seized upon all.[*](Cf. also Zos. iv. 14. In this way Valens greatly diminished our knowledge of the ancient writers, in particular of the philosophers.) Indeed, to speak briefly, at that time we all crept about as if in Cimmerian darkness,[*](See xxviii. 4, 18, note.) feeling the same fears as the guests of the Sicilian Dionysius, who, while filled to repletion with banquets more terrible than any possible hunger, saw with a shudder the swords hanging over their heads from the ceilings of the rooms in which they reclined and held only by single horsehairs.[*](Cf. Cic., Tusc. Disp. v. 21, 61 f.)