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).

After these helpful precautions, the king himself, with his followers—the wayfarer tracing his way back amongst the thickets

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through which he had come and showing a rough path very narrow indeed for a loaded pack-animal— left the soldiers[*](Those who were lying in wait for him.) behind him, and made his escape. They, after capturing his messengers, who had been sent merely to confuse the minds of those who were lying in wait for the king, were almost expecting him to rush into their open arms, like a wild beast at a hunt.[*](I.e., being driven into a net.) But while they were waiting for his coming, he was restored safe and sound to his kingdom, where he was received with the greatest joy by his subjects; but thereafter he remained unmoved in true allegiance, bearing in silence all the wrongs that he had suffered.

After this, as soon as Danielus and Barzimeres, baffled, had returned, they were assailed with shameful reproaches as blunderers and slothful, and like venomous serpents whose bite had been blunted by the first attack, they sharpened their deadly fangs, intending as soon as they could and to the extent of their powers to injure him who had given them the slip.

And to palliate their fault or the deception which they had suffered from greater cleverness, they bombarded the ears of the emperor (most retentive of all gossip) with false charges against Papa, alleging that he was wonderfully skilled through the incantations of Circe[*](Cf. Odyss. x. 233 ff.) in changing and weakening men’s bodies; and they added that, having by arts of that kind spread darkness round himself,[*](Offusa sibi caligine refers to Papa, meaning that he had wrapped himself in a cloud.) and by changing his own form and that of his followers, having passed through their lines,

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if he survived this trickery, he would cause sad troubles.

In this way the irreconcilable hatred of the emperor for Papa was increased, and plots were devised every day for taking his life either by violence or secretly; and to Trajanus,[*](Cf. xxix. 1, 2.) who was then in Armenia in command of the military forces, this work was entrusted through secret letters.

That general sought to win the king by treacherous flattery, now showing him letters of Valens as tokens of his calm state of mind, and now forcing himself upon his banquets; finally, when his plot was matured, he invited him with great respect to a luncheon. The king came, fearing no hostility, and took his place in the seat of honour granted him.

And when choice dainties were set before him, and the great building rang with the music of strings, songs, and wind-instruments,[*](For this combination, cf. xiv. 6, 18; Cic., Pro Rosc. Amer. 46, 134.) the host himself, already heated with wine, went out, under pretence of a call of nature. Then a rude barbarian, fiercely glaring with savage eyes and brandishing a drawn sword, one of the class called scurrae,[*](Guards; cf. xxix. 4, 4, note.) was sent in to kill the young man, who had already been cut off from any possibility of escape.

At this sight the young king, who, as it happened, was leaning forward beyond his couch, drew his dagger and was rising to defend his life by every possible means, but fell disfigured, pierced through the breast like some victim at the altar, foully slain by repeated strokes.