Res Gestae

There he was laid upon a bed; but although he was drawing more feeble remnants of breath, the vigour of his mind was not yet lessened, and he recognized all those who stood about him, whom the chamberlains had summoned With all speed, in order to avert any suspicion that he had been murdered. And since all parts of his body were burning hot, it was necessary to open a vein, but no physician could be found, since he had sent them to various places, to give attention to the soldiers who were attacked by the plague.

At last however one was found, but although he repeatedly pierced a vein, he could not draw even a single drop of blood, since the emperor’s inner parts were consumed by excessive heat, or (as some thought) because his body was dried up, since some passages for the blood (which we now all hemorrhoids) were closed and incrusted by he cold chills.

He felt the disease crushing him with a mighty force, and knew that the fated and of his life was at hand; and he tried to speak or give some orders, as was indicated by the gasps that often heaved his sides,[*](Cf. Virg. Aen. ix. 415.) by the grinding of his teeth, and by movements of his arms as if of men fighting with the cestus; but finally his strength failed him, his body was covered with livid spots, and after a long struggle for life he breathed his last, in the fifty-fifth year of his age and the twelfth of his reign, less a hundred days.[*](He was made Augustus A.D. Kal. Mart. (Feb. 23), 364, and died A.D. xv. Kal. Dec. (Nov. 18), 375.)

It is now in place to go back and (as we have often done) in a brief epilogue run through the deeds of this emperor, from the very birth of his father to his own decease, without omitting to distinguish his faults or his good qualities, brought to light as they were by greatness of power, which is always wont to lay bare a man’s inmost character.

His father, the elder Gratianus, was born at Cibalae, a town of Pannonia, of a humble family, and from his early boyhood was surnamed Funarius,[*](Cf. Pseud.-Aurel. Vict., Epit., 45, 2.) because when he was not yet grown up and was carrying round a rope for sale, and five soldiers tried with all their might to tear it from him, he gave way not an inch; he thus rivalled Milo of Croton, from whom no possible exercise of strength could ever take an apple, when he held it tightly in his left or his right hand, as he often did.