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).

During this time, when the barriers of our[*](376 f. A.D.) frontier were unlocked and the realm of savagery

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was spreading far and wide columns of armed[*](Ammianus seems to forget that the Goths were required first to hand over their weapons; but this order was frequently evaded through the negligence of the imperial officials.) men like glowing ashes from Aetna, when our difficulties and imminent dangers called for military reformers who were most distinguished for the fame of their exploits: then it was, as if at the choice of some adverse deity, that men were gathered together and given command of armies who bore stained reputations. At their head were two rivals in recklessness: one was Lupicinus, commanding general in Thrace, the other Maximus, a pernicious leader.

Their treacherous greed was the source of all our evils. I say nothing of other crimes which these two men, or at least others with their permission, with the worst of motives committed against the foreign new-comers, who were as yet blameless; but one melancholy and unheard-of act shall be mentioned, of which, even if they were their own judges[*](Cic., Deiot. 2, 4, nemo enimfere est, qui sui periculi iudex, non sibi se aequiorem quam reo praebeat.) of their own case, they could not be acquitted by any excuse.

When the barbarians after their crossing were harassed by lack of food, those most hateful generals devised a disgraceful traffic; they exchanged every dog that their insatiability could gather from far and wide for one slave each, and among these were carried off also sons of the chieftains.

During these days also Vithericus,[*](He was a young boy; cf. xxxi. 3, 3, where the name is given as Viderichus.) king of the Greuthungi, accompanied by Alatheus and Saphrax, by whose will he was ruled, and also by Farnobius, coming near to the banks of the Danube, hastily sent envoys and besought the emperor that

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he might be received with like kindness.

When these envoys were rejected, as the interests of the state seemed to demand, and were in doubt what course to take, Athanarichus, fearing a like fate, departed, remembering that he had some time before treated Valens with contempt when they were making a treaty of friendship, declaring that he was prevented by conscientious scruples from ever setting foot on Roman soil; and by this excuse he had forced the emperor to conclude peace in the middle of the river.[*](Cf. xxvii. 5, 6.) Fearing that the grudge caused by this still endured, Athanaricus withdrew with all his followers to Caucalanda, a place inaccessible because of high mountains and deep forests, from which he first drove out the Sarmatians.

But now the Theruingi, who had long since been permitted to cross, were still roaming about near the banks of the river, detained by a twofold obstacle, both because, through the ruinous negligence[*](For this meaning of dissimulatio, cf. xxviii. 4, 5.) of the generals, they were not supplied with the necessaries of life, and also because they were purposely held back by an abominable kind of traffic.[*](See 4, 11. The meaning is, in order that the Roman generals might carry the practice on longer.)

When this became clear to them, they muttered that they were being forced to disloyalty as a remedy for the evils that threatened them, and Lupicinus, fearing that they might soon revolt, sent soldiers and compelled them to move out[*](That is, into the interior of the country) more quickly.

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The Greuthungi took advantage of this favourable opportunity, and when they saw that our soldiers were busy elsewhere, and that the boats that usually went up and down the river and prevented them from crossing were inactive, they passed over the stream in badly made craft and pitched their camp at a long distance from Fritigern.