Res Gestae

But when the Germans resisted with the same persistence, and, being acquainted with the country, made for other mountains, higher than those which they had occupied before, the emperor wheeled in that direction with his army, and with the same courage as before sought to find paths leading to the heights.

When the Lentienses perceived that he was determined with most earnest persistence to have their lives, they obtained mercy as the result of humble supplications, and surrendered; then giving their strong young manhood (as they were ordered) to be mingled with our recruits, they were allowed to go without punishment to their native lands.

Incredibly great energy and conspicuous rapidity were shown by Gratian, while he was hastening in another direction, when through the favour of the eternal deity he won this victory, which was at once seasonable and profitable, since it tamed the western nations. He was a young man of spendid character, eloquent, self-restrained, war-like, and merciful, and was already on his way to rivalry with the most distinguished emperors while yet a comely down

For as that emperor felt superhuman exultation because he so often killed a great number of wild animals with javelins in the presence of the people, and slaughtered with various kinds of weapons in the arena of the amphitheatre a hundred lions that were let in together, without needing to inflict a second wound,[*](See Lamprid., Commodus, 12, 12.) just so Gratian also, while he pierced sharptoothed beasts with many an arrow-shot within the enclosures which are called vivaria,[*](Parks where wild beasts were kept.) neglected as of little moment many serious occurrences; and that too at a time when, even if Marcus Antoninus had been emperor, he could not without like-minded colleagues and most prudent counsel[*](Cf. Capitolinus, Ant. Phil. 22, 3 ff.) have mitigated the grievous disasters to our country.

Gratian, then, after making the arrangements which affairs and policy throughout Gaul demanded according to the trend of the times, and punishing the traitorous targeteer who had revealed to the barbarians that the emperor was hurrying to Illyricum, hastened next to go by long marches past the castle called Felix Arbor[*](In Raetia; modern Arbon.) and past Lauriacum,[*](In Noricum Ripense; modern Lorch (Lork).) to bring aid to the hard-pressed part of the country.