The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus Part 24

13. These and a few others, justice, coming to the aid of truth, delivered from their imminent dangers. But as accusations extended more widely, involving numbers without end in their snares, many perished; some with their bodies mangled on the rack; others were condemned to death and confiscation of their goods; while Paulus kept on inventing groundless accusations, as if he had a store of lies on which to draw, and suggesting various pretences for injuring people, so that on his nod, it may be said, the safety of every one in the place depended.

14. For if any one wore on his neck a charm against the quartan ague or any other disease, or if by any information laid by his ill-wishers he was accused of having pa.s.sed by a sepulchre at nightfall, and therefore of being a sorcerer, and one who dealt in the horrors of tombs and the vain mockeries of the shades which haunt them, he was found guilty and condemned to death.

15. And the affairs went on as if people had been consulting Claros, or the oaks at Dodona, or the Delphic oracles of old fame, with a view to the destruction of the emperor.

16. Meantime, the crowd of courtiers, inventing every kind of deceitful flattery, affirmed that he would be free from all common misfortunes, a.s.serting that his fate had always shone forth with vigour and power in destroying all who attempted anything injurious to him.

17. That indeed strict investigation should be made into such matters, no one in his senses will deny; nor do we question that the safety of our lawful prince, the champion and defender of the good, and on whom the safety of all other people depends, ought to be watched over by the combined zeal of all men; and for the sake of insuring this more completely, when any treasonable enterprise is discovered, the Cornelian laws have provided that no rank shall be exempted even from torture if necessary for the investigation.

18. But it is not decent to exult unrestrainedly in melancholy events, lest the subjects should seem to be governed by tyranny, not by authority. It is better to imitate Cicero, who, when he had it in his power either to spare or to strike, preferred, as he tells us himself, to seek occasions for pardoning rather than for punis.h.i.+ng, which is characteristic of a prudent and wise judge.

19. At that time a monster, horrible both to see and to describe, was produced at Daphne, a beautiful and celebrated suburb of Antioch; namely, an infant with two mouths, two sets of teeth, two heads, four eyes, and only two very short ears. And such a mis-shapen offspring was an omen that the republic would become deformed.

20. Prodigies of this kind are often produced, presaging events of various kinds; but as they are not now publicly expiated, as they were among the ancients, they are unheard of and unknown to people in general.

XIII.

-- 1. During this period the Isaurians, who had been tranquil for some time after the transactions already mentioned, and the attempt to take the city of Seleucia, gradually reviving, as serpents come out of their holes in the warmth of spring, descended from their rocky and pathless jungles, and forming into large troops, hara.s.sed their neighbours with predatory incursions; escaping, from their activity as mountaineers, all attempts of the soldiers to take them, and from long use moving easily over rocks and through thickets.

2. So Lauricius was sent among them as governor, with the additional t.i.tle of count, to reduce them to order by fair means or foul. He was a man of sound civil wisdom, correcting things in general by threats rather than by severity, so that while he governed the province, which he did for some time, nothing happened deserving of particular notice.

[102] Patroclus, the companion of Achilles.

[103] The Trojan war. See the account of the pestilence, Homer Il. i.

50.

[104] _i.e._, ????d??, from ?????, pestilence.

Pandemic means "attacking the whole people." Epidemic, "spreading from individual to individual."

[105] Ammian alludes to the expedition of Ulysses and Diomede related by Homer, Il. viii.

[106] Ammia.n.u.s is wrong here; it was only the Thebans who were called Spa?t??, from spe???, to sow, because of the fable of the dragon's teeth sown by Cadmus; the Athenians, who claimed to be earthborn, not called Spa?t??, but a?t?????e?.

[107] A quotation from the description of the foot-race in Virgil, aen.

v. 320.

[108] Salankemen, in Hungary.

BOOK XX.

ARGUMENT.

I. Lupicinus is sent as commander-in-chief into Britain with an army to check the incursions of the Picts and Scots.--II.

Ursicinus, commander of the infantry, is attacked by calumnies, and dismissed.--III. An eclipse of the sun--A discussion on the two suns, and on the causes of solar and lunar eclipses, and the various changes and shapes of the moon.--IV. The Caesar Julian, against his will, is saluted as emperor at Paris, where he was wintering, by his Gallican soldiers, whom Constantius had ordered to be taken from him, and sent to the East to act against the Persians.--V. He harangues his soldiers.--VI. Singara is besieged and taken by Sapor: the citizens, with the auxiliary cavalry and two legions in garrison, are carried off to Persia--The town is razed to the ground.--VII. Sapor storms the town of Bezabde, which is defended by three legions; repairs it, and places in it a garrison and magazines; he also attacks the fortress of Victa, without success.--VIII. Julian writes to Constantius to inform him of what had taken place at Paris.--IX. Constantius desires Julian to be content with the t.i.tle of Caesar; but the Gallican legions unanimously refuse to allow him to be so.--X. The Emperor Julian unexpectedly attacks a Frank tribe, known as the Attuarii, on the other side of the Rhine; slays some, takes others prisoners, and grants peace to the rest, on their pet.i.tion.--XI. Constantius attacks Bezabde with his whole force, but fails--A discussion on the rainbow.

I.

A.D. 360.

-- 1. These were the events which took place in Illyric.u.m and in the East. But the next year, that of Constantius's tenth and Julian's third consuls.h.i.+p, the affairs of Britain became troubled, in consequence of the incursions of the savage nations of Picts and Scots, who breaking the peace to which they had agreed, were plundering the districts on their borders, and keeping in constant alarm the provinces exhausted by former disasters, Caesar, who was wintering at Paris, having his mind divided by various cares, feared to go to the aid of his subjects across the channel (as we have related Constans to have done), lest he should leave the Gauls without a governor, while the Allemanni were still full of fierce and warlike inclinations.

2. Therefore, to tranquillize these districts by reason or by force, it was decided to send Lupicinus, who was at that time commander of the forces; a man of talent in war, and especially skilful in all that related to camps, but very haughty, and smelling, as one may say, of the tragic buskin, while parts of his conduct made it a question which predominated--his avarice or his cruelty.

3. Accordingly, an auxiliary force of light-armed troops, Heruli and Batavi, with two legions from Moesia, were in the very depth of winter put under the command of this general, with which he marched to Boulogne, and having procured some vessels and embarked his soldiers on them, he sailed with a fair wind, and reached Richborough on the opposite coast, from which place he proceeded to London, that he might there deliberate on the aspect of affairs, and take immediate measures for his campaign.

II.

-- 1. In the mean time, after the fall of Amida, and after Ursicinus had returned as commander of the infantry to the emperor's camp (for we have already mentioned that he had been appointed to succeed Barbatio), he was at once attacked by slanderers, who at first tried to whisper his character away, but presently openly brought forward false charges against him.

2. And the emperor, listening to them, since he commonly formed his opinions on vain conjecture, and was always ready to yield his judgment to crafty persons, appointed Arbetio and Florentius, the chief steward, as judges to inquire how it was that the town was destroyed. They rejected the plain and easily proved causes of the disaster, fearing that Eusebius, at that time high chamberlain, would be offended if they admitted proofs which showed undeniably that what had happened was owing to the obstinate inactivity of Sabinia.n.u.s; and so distorting the truth, they examined only some points of no consequence, and having no bearing on the transaction.

3. Ursicinus felt the iniquity of this proceeding; and said, "Although the emperor despises me, still the importance of this affair is such that it cannot be judged of and punished by any decision lower than that of the emperor. Nevertheless, let him know what I venture to prophesy, that while he is concerning himself about this disaster at Amida, of which he has received a faithful account; and while he gives himself up to the influence of the eunuchs, he will not in the ensuing spring,[109]

even if he himself should come with the entire strength of his army, be able to prevent the dismemberment of Mesopotamia." This speech having been related to the emperor with many additions, and a malignant interpretation, Constantius became enraged beyond measure; and without allowing the affair to be discussed, or those things to be explained to him of which he was ignorant, he believed all the calumnies against Ursicinus, and deposing him from his office, ordered him into retirement; promoting Agilo, by a vast leap, to take his place, he having been before only a tribune of a native troop of Scutarii.

III.

-- 1. At the same time one day the sky in the east was perceived to be covered with a thick darkness, and from daybreak to noon the stars were visible throughout; and, as an addition to these terrors, while the light of heaven was thus withdrawn, and the world almost buried in clouds, men, from the length of the eclipse, began to believe that the sun had wholly disappeared. Presently, however, it was seen again like a new moon, then like a half-moon, and at last it was restored entire.

2. A thing which on other occasions did not happen so visibly except when after several unequal revolutions, the moon returns to exactly the same point at fixed intervals; that is to say, when the moon is found in the same sign of the zodiac, exactly opposite to the rays of the sun, and stops there a few minutes, which in geometry are called parts of parts.

3. And although the changes and motions of both sun and moon, as the inquiries into intelligible causes have remarked, perpetually return to the same conjunction at the end of each lunar month, still the sun is not always eclipsed on these occasions, but only when the moon, as by a kind of balance, is in the exact centre between the sun and our sight.

4. In short, the sun is eclipsed, and his brilliancy removed from our sight, when he and the moon, which of all the constellations of heaven is the lowest, proceeding with equal pace in their orbits, are placed in conjunction in spite of the height which separates them (as Ptolemy learnedly explains it), and afterwards return to the dimensions which are called ascending or descending points of the ecliptic conjunctions: or, as the Greeks call them, defective conjunctions. And if these great lights find themselves in the neighbourhood of these points or knots, the eclipse is small.

5. But if they are exactly in the knots which form the points of intersection between the ascending and descending path of the moon, then the sky will be covered with denser darkness, and the whole atmosphere becomes so thick that we cannot see what is close to us.

6. Again, the sun is conceived to appear double when a cloud is raised higher than usual, which from its proximity to the eternal fires, s.h.i.+nes in such a manner that it forms the brightness of a second orb as from a purer mirror.

7. Now let us come to the moon. The moon sustains a clear and visible eclipse when, being at the full, and exactly opposite to the sun, she is distant from his...o...b..one hundred and eighty degrees, that is, is in the seventh sign; and although this happens at every full moon, still there is not always one eclipse.

8. But since she is always nearest to the earth as it revolves, and the most distant from the rest of the other stars, and sometimes exposes itself to the light which strikes it, and sometimes also is partially obscured by the intervention of the shade of night, which comes over it in the form of a cone; and then she is involved in thick darkness, when the sun, being surrounded by the centre of the lowest sphere, cannot illuminate her with his rays, because the ma.s.s of the earth is in the way; for opinions agree that the moon has no light of her own.

9. And when she returns to the same sign of the zodiac which the sun occupies, she is obscured (as has been said), her brightness being wholly dimmed, and this is called a conjunction of the moon.

10. Again the moon is said to be new when she has the sun above her with a slight variation from the perpendicular, and then she appears very thin to mankind, even when leaving the sun she reaches the second sign.

Then, when she has advanced further, and s.h.i.+nes brilliantly with a sort of horned figure, she is said to be crescent shaped; but when she begins to be a long way distant from the sun, and reaches the fourth sign, she gets a greater light, the sun's rays being turned upon her, and then she is of the shape of a semicircle.

11. As she goes on still further, and reaches the fifth sign, she a.s.sumes a convex shape, a sort of hump appearing from each side. And when she is exactly opposite the sun, she s.h.i.+nes with a full light, having arrived at the seventh sign; and even while she is there, having advanced but a very little further, she begins to diminish, which we call waning; and as she gets older, she resumes the same shapes that she had while increasing. But it is established by unanimous consent that she is never seen to be eclipsed except in the middle of her course.

12. But when we said that the sun moves sometimes in the ether, sometimes in the lower-world, it must be understood that the starry bodies, considered in relation to the universe, neither set nor rise; but only appear to do so to our sight on earth, which is suspended by the motion of some interior spirit, and compared with the immensity of things is but a little point, which causes the stars in their eternal order to appear sometimes fixed in heaven, and at others, from the imperfection of human vision, moving from their places. Let us now return to our original subject.