Res Gestae

At that time Bassianus also, one of a most illustrious family and serving as a secretary of the first class,[*](See Index II, Vol. I, s.v. notarii. ) was accused of trying to gain foreknowledge of higher power, although he himself declared that he had merely inquired about the sex of a child which his wife expected; but by the urgent efforts of the kinsfolk by whom he was defended, he was saved from death; but he was stripped of his rich patrimony.

Amid the crash of so many ruins Heliodorus, that hellish contriver with Palladius of all evils, being a mathematician[*](I.e., an astrologer, a caster of nativities.) (in the parlance of the vulgar) and pledged by secret instructions from the imperial court, after he had been cajoled by every enticement of kindness to induce him to reveal what he knew or could invent, now put forth his deadly stings.

For he was most solicitously pampered with the choicest foods, and earned a great amount of contributed money for presents to his concubines; and so he strode about anywhere and everywhere, displaying his grim face, which struck fear into all. And his assurance was the greater because, in his capacity as chamberlain, he constantly and openly visited the women’s apartments, to which, as he himself desired, he freely resorted, displaying the warrants[*](See xiv. 5, 5, note 3.) of the Father of his People,[*](Ironical, for the emperor.) which were to be a cause of grief to many.

And through these warrants Heliodorus instructed Palladius (as though he were an advocate in public law-suits) what to put at the beginning of his speech, in order the more easily to make it effective and strong, or with which figures of rhetoric he ought to aim at brilliant passages.[*](Text and exact meaning are uncertain. It is not clear what the subject of praemonebat is. G reads Valens for et valere and praemonebatur. )

And since it would be a long story to tell all this gallows-bird[*](The word may mean one who crucifies or one who deserves to be crucified—hence hangman or gallows-bird. The latter seems preferable.) contrived, I will recount this one case, showing with what audacious confidence he smote the very pillars of the patriciate. For made enormously insolent by secret conferences

Eagerly drinking this in, the menacing madman,[*](Valens.) to whom nothing ought to have been permitted, since he thought that everything, even what was unjust, was allowed him,[*](Cf. Seneca, De Ira, iii. 12, 7, nihil tibi liceat, dum irasceris. Quare? Quia vis omnia licere; and Consol. ad Polybium, 7, 2.) inexorably summoned from the farthest boundaries of the empire all those whom the accuser, exempt from the laws, with profound assurance had insisted ought to be brought before him, and ordered a calumnious trial to be set on foot.

And when in much-knotted bonds of constriction justice had long been trodden down and tied tightly, and the wretched scoundrel persisted in his strings of assertions, severe tortures could force no confession, but showed that these distinguished men were far removed even from any knowledge of anything of the kind. Nevertheless, the calumniator was as highly honoured as before, while the accused were punished with exile and with fines; but shortly afterwards they were recalled, had their fines remitted, and were restored to their former rank and honour unimpaired.

Yet after these so lamentable events Valens acted with no more restraint or shame; since excessive power does not reflect that it is unworthy for men of right principles, even to the disadvantage of their enemies, willingly to plunge into crime, and that nothing is so ugly as for a cruel nature to be joined to lofty pride of power.[*](Cf. Cic., Ad Quint. Frat. i. 1, 13, 37, nihil est tam deformed quam ad summum imperium etiam acerbitatem naturae adiungere. )

But when Heliodorus died (whether naturally or through some deliberate violence[*](Doubtless through his enemies, who were numerous. Hypatius and Eusebius; see 2, 9, above.) is uncertain; I would rather not say too late: I only wish that even the facts did not speak to that effect!) his body was carried out by the undertakers, and many men of rank, clad in mourning, were ordered to precede it, including the brothers who had been consuls.[*](I.e., of subjecting men of rank to such an indignity.)

Thereby the entire rottenness of the folly of the empire’s ruler was then completely revealed; for although he was earnestly besought to refrain from this inexcusable insult,[*](Cf. xxvii. 11, 6.) yet he remained so inflexible that he seemed to have stopped his ears with wax,[*](Cf. xxviii. 1, 12.) as if he were going to pass the rocks of the Sirens.

At last, however, he yielded to insistent prayers, and ordered that some persons should precede the ill-omened bier of the body-snatcher[*](Cf. Suet., Aug. 100, 4.) to the tomb, marching with bare heads and feet,[*](A sign of mourning; cf. Apul., Metam. iii. 1.) some also with folded hands.[*](Cf. xxviii. 1, 15.) My mind shrinks from recalling, during that suspension of justice,[*](Cf. mundanum fulgorem, xiv. 6, 3.) how many men of the highest rank, especially exconsuls, after having carried the staves of honour and worn purple robes, and having their names made known to all the world 10 in the Roman calendar, were

Conspicuous among all of these was our Hypatius, a man recommended from his youth by noble virtues, of quiet and calm discretion, and of a nobility and gentleness measured as it were by the plumb-line;[*](See xiv. 8, 11, note 2; xxi. 16, 3, note 4.) he conferred honour on the fame of his ancestors[*](Cf. C.I.L. i. part 2, ed. 2, 15 (epitaph of Scipio Hispanus), virtutes generis mieis mribus accumulavi. ) and himself gave glory to posterity by the admirable acts of his two prefectures.[*](At a later time; Flavius Hypatius was prefect of Rome in 397, praetorian prefect in 382 and 383.)

At the time Valens added this also to the rest of his glories, that while in other instances he was so savagely cruel as to grieve that the great pain of his punishments could not continue after death,[*](ferret . . . dolores, hexameter rhythm.) yet he spared the tribune Numerius, a man of surpassing wickedness! This man was convicted at that same time on his own confession of having dared to cut open the womb of a living woman and take out her unripe offspring, in order to evoke the ghosts of the dead and consult them about a change of rulers; yet Valens, who looked on him with the eye of an intimate friend, in spite of the murmurs of the whole Senate gave orders that he should escape unpunished, and retain his life, his enviable wealth, and his military rank unimpaired.

O noble system of wisdom, by heaven’s gift bestowed upon the fortunate, thou who hast often ennobled even sinful natures! How much wouldst thou have corrected in those dark days, if it had been permitted Valens to learn through you that royal power—as the philosophers declare—is nothing else than the care for others’ welfare;[*](Cf. xxv. 3, 18; Cic., De Off. i. 25, 85.) that

A woman of Smyrna confessed before Dolabella,[*](Cf. Val. Max. viii. 1, Amb. 2; Gell. xii. 7, 4. Dolabella is probably the man who was consul with Antony, and after Caesar’s death governed the province of Asia.) the proconsul of Asia, that she had poisoned her husband and her own son by him, because (as she said) she had discovered that they had killed her son by a former marriage; but she was ordered to appear again two days later.[*](I.e., the case was adjourned for that time, as provided by the law of Ser. Sulpicius Galba; cf. Cic., Verr. ii. 1, 7, 20.) Since the council, to which according to custom the matter was referred, uncertain what distinction ought to be made between revenge and crime, hesitated to decide, she was sent before the Areopagites, those strict judges at Athens, whose justice is said to have decided disputes even among the gods.[*](There was a myth that Ares or Mars, to avenge an injury to his daughter, slew Halirrhothius, son of Posidon or Neptune, and that the case came before the Areopagus; of. Aug., De Civ. Dei, xviii. 10.) They, after

After these various deeds of injustice which have already been mentioned, and the marks of torture shamefully branded upon the bodies of such free men as bad survived, the never-closing eye of Justice, the eternal witness and avenger of all things, was watchfully attentive. For the last curses of the murdered, moving the eternal godhead through the just ground of their complaints, had kindled the firebrands of Bellona; so that the truth of the oracle was confirmed, which had predicted that no crimes would go unpunished.

While these events, which have just been[*](372 A.D.) described, during the cessation of the Parthian storm were being spread abroad at Antioch in the form of internal troubles, the awful band of the Furies, after making a rolling flood of manifold disasters, left that city and settled on the shoulders of all Asia, in the following way.

A certain Festinus of Tridentum, a man of the lowest and most obscure parentage, was admitted by Maximinus[*](Cf. xxviii. 1, 5 ff.) even into the ties of affection which true brothers show, for he had been his boon companion and with him had assumed the manly gown. By decree of the fates this man passed over to the Orient, and there in the administration of Syria, and after serving as master of the rolls,[*](Cf. xv. 5, 4, note 3.) he left behind him praiseworthy examples of mildness and of respect for law; and when later he was advanced

But hearing that Maximinus planned to wipe out all decent men, from that time on he decried his actions as dangerous and shameful. But when he learned that Maximinus, merely through the recommendation of the deaths of those whom he had impiously slain, had attained the honour of prefect contrary to his deserts, he was aroused to similar deeds and hopes. Like an actor, suddenly changing his mask, he conceived the desire of doing harm and stalked about with intent and cruel eyes, imagining that the prefecture would soon be his if he also should have stained himself with the punishment of the innocent.

And although many of the various acts which he committed were very harsh, to express it mildly, yet it will suffice to mention a few which are familiar and generally known, and done in emulation of those which had taken place in Rome. For the principle of good or bad deeds is the same everywhere, even if the greatness of the situation is not the same.[*](That is, whether the place, the circumstances, and even the deeds themselves are unlike.)