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).

For whatever he did was good. He so governed two races at the same time, Romans and Goths, that although he himself was of the Arian[*](See note on § 94 (p. 569), and for spelling, on § 48.) sect, he nevertheless made no assault on the Catholic religion; he gave games in the circus and the amphitheatre, so that even by the Romans he was called a Trajan or a Valentinian, whose times he took as a model; and by the Goths, because of his edict, in which he established justice, he was judged to be in all respects their best king. Military service for the Romans he kept on the same footing as under the emperors. He was generous with gifts and the distribution of grain, and although he had found the public treasury nothing but a haystack,[*](Literally, consisting of hay; i.e. he found nothing there but hay; cf. Catull. 13, 7 f., Catulli plenus sacculus est aranearum. ) by his efforts it was restored and made rich.