Res Gestae

From it one of the bodyguard leaped through a window, but was taken by the enemy; when he told them what had happened, he filled them with sorrow at being cheated of great glory, in not having taken the ruler of the Roman empire alive. This same young man, having later escaped and returned secretly to our army, gave this account of what had occurred.

When Spain had been recovered, with a similar disaster the second of the Scipios,[*](I.e., Cn. Cornelius Scipio Calvus, 212 B.C. Livy, xxv. 36, 13.) we are told, was burned with a tower in which he had taken refuge and which the enemy had set on fire.[*](Cf. Livy, xxv. 36, 13; Appian, Bell. Hisp. 3, 16 (Rom. Hist. vi. 3, 16).) This much, at any rate, is certain, that neither Scipio nor Valens had the fortune of burial[*](Cf. Iliad, 456; Virg., Aen. xi. 22; Val. Max. iv. 4, 2.) which is death’s final honour.

Amid this manifold loss of distinguished men, the deaths of Trajanus and Sebastianus stood out. With them fell thirty-five tribunes, without special assignments, and leaders of bodies of troops,[*](On numeri, see xiv. 7, 19; on vacantes, Introd., Vol. I, p. xliv.) as well as Valerianus and Aequitius, the one having charge of the stables, the other, of the Palace. Among these also Potentius lost his life in the first flower of his youth; he was tribune of the promoti,[*](See xv. 4, 10, note 3, and Index II, Vol. I.) respected by all good men and honoured both for his own services and those of his father Ursicinus, formerly a commander-in-chief. Certain

The annals record no such massacre of a battle except the one at Cannae, although the Romans more than once, deceived by trickery due to an adverse breeze of Fortune, yielded for a time to illsuccess in their wars, and although the storied dirges of the Greeks have mourned over many a contest.

Thus then died Valens, at the age of almost fifty and after a reign of a little less than fourteen years.[*](As a matter of fact, he reigned four months more than fourteen years, having been made Augustus by his brother in March of the year 364. He lost his life Aug. 8, 378. Pseud.-Aur. Vict. Epit. 46, gives 13 years and 5 months; Socrates and Sozomenus give 16 years.)