Aurelius Victor: LIBER ET INCERTORVM LIBRI

SEXTI AVRELII VICTORIS
LIBER DE CAESARIBVS AVRELII VICTORIS
HISTORIAE ABBREVIATAE
ab Augusto Octaviano,
id est a fine Titi Livii, usque ad consulatum decimum
Constantii Augusti et Iuliani Caesaris tertium.

OF SEXTUS AURELIUS VICTOR
BOOK ON THE CAESARS OF AURELIUS VICTOR
ABBREVIATED HISTORIES
from Augustus Octavian,
that is from the end of Titus Livius, up to the tenth consulship
of Constantius Augustus and the third of Julian Caesar.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42

1 ¹ Anno urbis septingentesimo fere vicesimoque, duobus etiam, mos Romae incessit uni prorsus parendi. Namque Octavianus, patre Octavio, atque adoptione magni avunculi Caesaris ac mox procerum consulto ob victoriam partium placide exercitam Augusti cognomento dictus, illectis per dona militibus atque annonae curandae specie vulgo ceteros haud difficulter subegit. ² Eoque modo annis quattuor circiter et quadraginta actis morbo Nolae consumptus, adiectis imperio civium Raetia Illyricoque, ac pacata exterarum gentium ferocia nisi Germaniae, ³ quamquam tertius post Numam victo Antonio Ianum clauserit, quod iure Romano quiescentibus bellis accidebat.

1 ¹ In about the seven hundred and twentieth year of the city, and even by two besides, the custom arose at Rome of obeying one person absolutely. For Octavian, son of Octavius, and by the adoption of his great-uncle Caesar and soon, by a decree of the nobles, on account of the victory of his party peacefully carried out, called by the cognomen Augustus, with the soldiers enticed by gifts and under the pretext of caring for the grain-supply, not with difficulty subdued the rest of the common people. ² And in this way, with about forty-four years passed, consumed by illness at Nola, with Raetia and Illyricum added to the empire of the citizens, and the ferocity of foreign nations pacified, except that of Germany, ³ although, the third after Numa, with Antony conquered, he shut Janus, which according to Roman law happened when wars were at rest.

⁴ Mores viro civiles lepidique flagrante haud modice luxuria ludorumque cupidine atque ad somnum intemperantie. ⁵ Doctorum, qui abunde erant, necessariorumque percultor, cum eloquentiae studio ac religionibus mire attineretur, ⁶ pater patriae ob clementiam ac tribunicia potestate perpetuo habitus; hincque uti deo Romae provinciisque omnibus per urbes celeberrimas vivo mortuoque templa, sacerdotes et collegia sacravere. ⁷ Felix adeo (absque liberis tamen simulque coniugio), ut Indi, Scythae, Garamantes ac Bactri legatos mitterent orando foederi.

⁴ The man’s manners were civil and winsome, though he burned not moderately with luxury and with a cupidity for games, and with intemperance as to sleep. ⁵ A thorough cultivator of the learned—who were in abundance—and of intimates, since he was wondrously attached to the study of eloquence and to religions, ⁶ he was held to be Father of the Fatherland for his clemency, and held the tribunician power in perpetuity; and hence, as to a god, at Rome and in all the provinces, through the most celebrated cities, both while living and when dead, temples, priests, and collegia were consecrated. ⁷ So fortunate (yet without children and likewise without marriage) that the Indians, Scythians, Garamantes, and Bactrians sent envoys to sue for a treaty.

2 ¹ Dein Claudius Tiberius Nero, in Augusti liberos e privigno redactus arrogatione, ubi, quae metuebantur, satis tuta animadvertit, imperium complexus est, cuius nomen astu abnuebat: subdolus et occultior, hisque saepe simulando infensus, quae maxime cuperet, et insidiose deditus, quae odio erant; ingenio ad repentina longe acriore; bonis initiis deinde perniciosus, quaesitissimis in omnem fere aetatem sexumque libidinibus, atque atrocius puniens insontes noxios, suos pariter externosque. ² Adhuc dum urbes et conventus exsecratur, Capreas insulam quaesiverat flagitiis obtentui. ³ Quare solutis militiae artibus direpta pleraque iuris Romani; nihilque praeter Cappadocas idque inter exordia in provinciam subactum remoto rege Archelao; compressaque Gaetulorum latrocinia, quae Tacfarinate duce passim proruperant.

2 ¹ Then Claudius Tiberius Nero, brought by arrogation from being a stepson into the children of Augustus, when he observed that the things which were feared were quite safe, embraced the imperium, the name of which he astutely disowned: sly and more occult, and often by dissembling hostile to those things which he most desired, and insidiously devoted to those things which were objects of hatred; in disposition far sharper for sudden developments; after good beginnings thereafter pernicious, with most recherché libidinousnesses toward nearly every age and sex, and punishing more atrociously the innocent than the guilty, his own people and foreigners alike. ² Meanwhile, while he execrated cities and assemblies, he had sought the island of Capreae as a cover for his disgraces. ³ Wherefore, with the arts of military service relaxed, much of Roman law was despoiled; and nothing except the Cappadocians—and that at the very outset—was subdued into a province, King Archelaus having been removed; and the banditries of the Gaetulians, which under the leader Tacfarinas had burst forth everywhere, were suppressed.

⁴ Simul Marobodus callide circuinventus, Sueborum rex; neque minus contractas undique cohortes praetorias, quae dispersae proximis municipiis seu Romae quaeque per domos habebantur, in castra apud urbem redegit, qua tenebantur praefecturam appellans, vel augens, praetorio; nam ceteros paritorum praesidesque Augustue instituerat.

⁴ At the same time Marobodus, the king of the Suebi, was cleverly circumvented; and no less he gathered from every side the Praetorian cohorts, which, scattered in the nearest municipalities or at Rome, were kept in private houses, and brought them back into the camp near the city, calling, or even enlarging, the Prefecture of the Praetorium by which they were held; for Augustus had instituted the other officials and the provincial governors.

3 ¹ Igitur Claudio febri an insidiis oppresso, cum imperium tres atque viginti, aevi octogesimum uno minus annos egisset, Gaius Caesar cognomento Caligula aventibus cunctis deligitur, maiorum gratiae parentisque. ² Namque per filiam proavus Augustus, genere materne Agrippa, Drusus, Germanici pater, e quo is oriebatur, avi erant. ³ Quorum modestia atque immaturo, absque Octaviani, interitu vulgus, simul matris fratrumque, quos vario Tiberius exitio interceperat, permovebatur.

3 ¹ Therefore, with Claudius overwhelmed either by fever or by plots, when he had exercised the imperium for three and twenty years, and had passed an age one short of eighty years, Gaius Caesar, by cognomen Caligula, was chosen with all men eager for it, by the favor of his ancestors and of his parent. ² For through his daughter Augustus was the great‑grandfather, by maternal lineage Agrippa, and Drusus, the father of Germanicus, from whom he sprang—these were grandfathers. ³ By whose modesty and untimely death—Octavian’s excepted—the common crowd was moved, and likewise by that of his mother and brothers, whom Tiberius had cut off by various kinds of doom.

⁴ Qua causa nitebantur omnes casum tantae familiae lenire adolescentuli spe, tum quia natus in exercitu (unde cognomentum calceamento militari quaesiverat) legionibus carus acceptusque habebatur. ⁵ Praeterea prudentissimus quisque similem fore suis credebat; quod longe secus quasi naturae loge, quae crebro tamquam ex industria malos e bonis, agrestes ex doctioribus et ceteros huiuscemodi seu contra gignit. ⁶ Quo demum exemplo sapientium plures caruisse liberis utilius duxere.

⁴ For which cause all strove to soften the mishap of so great a family by the hope of the youngster, then too because, born in the army (whence he had sought his cognomen from the military boot), he was held dear and acceptable to the legions. ⁵ Moreover, each of the most prudent believed that he would be like his own; but this was far otherwise, as by the law of nature, which often, as if by design, begets bad from good, rustic from the more learned, and others of this kind, or contrariwise. ⁶ Whence at last, by this example, more of the wise deemed it more advantageous to have lacked children.

⁷ Ceterum in Caligula haudquaquam vero plurimum aberant, quippe qui diu immania animi ita pudore ac parendi specie obtexerat, uti merito vulgaretur neque meliores famulos neque atrociorem dominum illo fuisse. ⁸ Denique nactus potestatem, uti talia ingenia recens solent, anni mensibus egregia ad populum, inter patres, cum militibus gessit; delataque coniuratione quasi minus credens praedicavit vix convenire in eum, cuius vita nullius oneri aut incommodo esset. ⁹ Sed repente caesis primum vario facinore innocentium paucioribus tamquam beluae hausto sanguine ingenium exeruit; itaque deinceps triennium consumptum, cum senatus atque optimi cuiusque multiplici clade terramm orbis foedaretur.

⁷ However, in the case of Caligula they were by no means very far from the truth, since for a long time he had so covered the monstrosities of his spirit with modesty and the appearance of obeying, that it was rightly bruited that there had been neither better servants nor a more atrocious master than he. ⁸ Finally, having obtained power, as characters of such a sort, when fresh, are wont, for the months of a year he did outstanding things toward the people, among the Fathers, with the soldiers; and when a conspiracy was reported, as if scarcely believing it, he proclaimed that it hardly suited to be aimed at one whose life was a burden or inconvenience to no one. ⁹ But suddenly, after first by various crimes having slain a few of the innocent, as though, once blood had been drunk like a beast, he exercised his inborn nature; and so thereafter a three-year period was consumed, while the senate and every best man were defiled with manifold slaughter, and the orb of lands was befouled.

¹⁰ Quin etiam sororum stupro ac matrimoniis illudens nobilibus deorum habita incedebat, cum Iovem se ob incestum, ex choro autem Bacchanali Liberum assereret. ¹¹ Neque secus contractis ad unum legionibus spe in Germaniam transgrediendi conchas umbilicosque in ora maris Oceani legi iussit, ¹² cum ipse nunc fluxo cultu Venerioque interesset, nanc armatus spolia a se non ex hominibus, sed caelestium capi dictitaret, scilicet quod huiuscemodi pisces Graecorum dicto, quis augendi omnia studium est, Nympharum lumina accepisset. ¹³ His elatus dominum dici atque insigne regni nectere capiti tentaverat.

¹⁰ Nay more, mocking with the debauchery of his sisters and with marriages of nobles, he went about held as a god, since on account of incest he asserted himself to be Jupiter, and out of the Bacchanal chorus to be Liber. ¹¹ And likewise, the legions massed into one with the hope of crossing into Germany, he ordered conches and whelks to be gathered on the shore of the Ocean sea, ¹² while he himself now attended in flowing and Venus-like attire, now armed kept saying that spoils were being taken by him not from men but from the celestials, namely because fishes of this sort, according to a saying of the Greeks—who have a zeal for augmenting everything—had been received as the eyes of the Nymphs. ¹³ Elated by these things he had tried to be called lord and to fasten the emblem of kingship upon his head.

¹⁴ Qua causa auctore Chaerea moti, quibus Romana virtus inerat, tanta pernicie rempublicam confosso eo levare; relatumque excellens Bruti facinus eiecto Tarquinio foret, si per Quirites modo militia exerceretur. ¹⁵ Verum ubi cives desidia externos barbarosque in exereitum cogere libido incessit, corruptis moribus libertas oppressa atque habendi auctum studium. ¹⁶ Interim dum senatus decreto gentem Caesarum, etiam muliebri sexu, omnemque affinitatem armati persequuntur, forte Vimius, ortus Epiri, centurio e cohortibus, quae palatium per opportunos locos obsidebant, Titum Claudium occultantem se repperit deformi latebra protractatoque eo exclamat apud socios, si sapiant, adesse principem.

¹⁴ For which cause, with Chaerea as instigator, those in whom Roman virtue resided were moved to relieve the republic by stabbing him with so great a perdition; and the excellent exploit of Brutus, with Tarquin cast out, would have been recalled, if military service were exercised by the Quirites alone. ¹⁵ But when, through the sloth of the citizens, the lust arose to muster foreigners and barbarians into the army, with morals corrupted liberty was oppressed and the zeal for possession was augmented. ¹⁶ Meanwhile, while by a decree of the senate they, armed, pursue the clan of the Caesars, even the female sex, and every affinity, by chance Vimius, sprung from Epirus, a centurion from the cohorts which were besieging the palace at favorable points, found Titus Claudius hiding himself in an unsightly lair, and dragging him out he exclaims among his comrades that, if they are wise, the princeps is present.

¹⁷ Et sane quia vecors erat, mitissimus videbatur imprudentibus; quae res adversum nefariam patrui Neronis mentem auxilio neque apud fratris filium Caligulam invidiae fuit; quin etiam militares plebisque animos conciliaverat, dum flagrante suorum dominatione ipse contemptui miserabilior haberetur. ¹⁸ Talia plerisque memorantibus repente eum nullo retractante quae adorant turbae circumsistunt, simulque affluebant reliqui militum et vulgi magna vis. Quod ubi patres accepere, mittunt ocius si valerent ausum comprimere.

¹⁷ And indeed, because he was witless, he seemed most mild to the imprudent; which thing was a help against the nefarious mind of his uncle Nero and was not, with his brother’s son Caligula, a matter of envy; nay rather he had conciliated the minds of the military and of the plebs, while, his people’s domination blazing, he himself, held in contempt, was reckoned the more pitiable. ¹⁸ As very many were recounting such things, suddenly, with no one drawing him back, the crowds that adore surround him, and at the same time there was flowing in a great force of the remainder of the soldiers and of the mob. When the Fathers learned this, they send with all speed to see if they might be able to check the daring attempt.

¹⁹ Sed postquam variis tetrisque seditionibus civitas cunctique ordines lacerabantur, tamquam ex imperio omnes dedere se. ²⁰ Ita Romae regia potestas firmata proditumque apertius mortalium conatus vacuos a fortuna caesosque esse.

¹⁹ But after the commonwealth and all the orders were being torn by various and dire seditions, all, as if by a command, surrendered themselves. ²⁰ Thus at Rome the regal power was established, and it was more openly made manifest that the endeavors of mortals, void of Fortune, are cut down.

4 ¹ Igitur Claudius, quamquam ventri foede oboediens, vecors iuxta atque immemor pavidusque animi et ignavior esset, pleraque per formidinem tamen egregie consultabat, nobilitatis praecipue consiliis, quae metu colebatur: quippe stolidorum ingenia proinde agunt, uti monitores sunt. ² Denique bonis auctoribus compressa per eum vitia ac per Galliam Drysadarum famosae superstitiones; lata iura quam commodissima; curatum militiae officium; retenti fines seu dati imperio Romano; Mesopotamia per orientem, Rhenus Danubiusque ad septeintrionem et a meridie Mauri accessere provinciis, demptis regibus post Iubam; caesaque Musulamiorum manus; simul ultima occasus, Britanniae partes contusae, quam solam adiit, Ostia profectus mari; nam cetera duces curavere. ³ Adbuc annonae egestas composita, quam Caligula invexerat, dum adactis toto orbe navigiis pervium mare theatris curribusque damno publico efficere contendit.

4 ¹ Therefore Claudius, although foully obedient to his belly, insane as well as unmindful and fearful of spirit and rather more craven, nevertheless through fear deliberated most things excellently, especially by the counsels of the nobility, whom he cultivated out of fear: indeed the wits of the stolid act in accordance with how their monitors are. ² Finally, by good authorities vices were suppressed through him, and through Gaul the notorious superstitions of the Drysadae; laws most commodious were enacted; the duty of military service was cared for; the boundaries were retained or assigned to the Roman imperium; Mesopotamia on the east, the Rhine and the Danube to the north, and from the south the Moors were added to the provinces, kings having been removed after Juba; and a band of the Musulamii was cut down; at the same time the furthest parts of the sunset, portions of Britain, were crushed, which alone he visited, having set out from Ostia by sea; for the rest the commanders took care. ³ Moreover the scarcity of the grain-supply was settled, which Caligula had brought on, while, with ships driven throughout the whole world, he strove to render the sea passable for theatres and chariots, to the public loss.

⁴ Neque secus censu novato, cum senatu motis pluribus lascivum adolescentem, quem sibi probatum parens asseruerat, retinuisset, censorem et liberis patrem debere esse recte adiecerat. ⁵ Ast ubi Messalinae coniugis simulque libertorum delinimentis, quibus semet dediderat, in pravum abstractus, non illa modo tyrannorum admissa, verum quae postremum genus mulierum atque servile quibat facere viro amenti dominoque. ⁶ Namque uxor primo passim quasi iure adulteris utebatur; eoque exstincti cum suis plerique ingenio seu metu abstinentes, dum pervagatis mulierum artibus peti a se petitos criminatur.

⁴ Likewise, with the census renewed, although he had removed several from the senate, he retained a lascivious adolescent, whom his parent had averred was approved to himself, and he rightly added that a censor ought to be also a father to children. ⁵ But when, by the blandishments of his wife Messalina and likewise of the freedmen, to whom he had surrendered himself, he was drawn aside into the depraved, not only were those things admitted which are of tyrants, but even such as the lowest sort of women and the servile could do to a mad husband and master. ⁶ For at first his wife everywhere used adulterers as if by right; and therefore many, together with their own, those abstaining whether by character or by fear, were extinguished, while, with the widespread arts of women, she charges as the pursuers those who had been sought by herself.

⁷ Dehinc atrocius accensa nobiliores quasque nuptas et virgines scortorum modo secum prostituerat; coactique mares, uti adessent. ⁸ Quod si qui talia horruerat, afficto crimine in ipsum omnemque familiam saeviebatur. ⁹ Namque Claudium, uti supra docuimus, natura performidolosum iniecto metu sui agitabant, maxime coniurationis; quo commento liberti etiam, quos vellent, perditum ibant.

⁷ Thereafter, inflamed more atrociously, she had prostituted with herself, after the fashion of harlots, the more noble married women and virgins alike; and the males were coerced to be present. ⁸ But if any had shuddered at such things, with a feigned charge affixed, fury was wreaked upon him and his whole household. ⁹ For Claudius, as we have taught above, being by nature exceedingly timorous, they manipulated by injecting fear for his own person, especially of conspiracy; by which contrivance the freedmen too used to go to the ruin of whomever they wished.

¹⁰ Qui primo sceleribus coniventes, ubi pares patronae facti sunt, eam quoque ignaro, quasi iubente tamen, domino per satellites interfecere. ¹¹ Et sane in id progressa mulier erat, uti animi ac pellicum gratia marito Ostiam profecto Romae nuptias cum altero frequentaret; et hinc notior, dum mirum videtur apud imperatorem viro quam imperatori nuptam esse. ¹² Ita liberti potestatem nacti summam stupris exilio caede proscriptionibus omnia foedabant, eoque herilem stultitiam perpulere, uti senex fratris filiam in nuptias concupisceret.

¹⁰ They, at first conniving at the crimes, when they had been made equals to their patroness, killed her too, their master unaware, yet as though ordering it, by means of bodyguards. ¹¹ And indeed the woman had advanced to this point, that, for the sake of her fancy and of her concubines, with her husband having set out to Ostia, she was celebrating nuptials at Rome with another; and hence the more notorious, since it seems a marvel to be a wife to a man in the presence of the emperor rather than married to the emperor. ¹² Thus the freedmen, having obtained the highest power, were defiling everything with debaucheries, exile, slaughter, and proscriptions, and they drove their master’s folly to this point, that the old man should desire his brother’s daughter in nuptials.

Quae †quamvis superiore absurdior haberetur iccircoque paria extimesceret, veneno coniugem interemit. ¹⁴ Huius anno sexto, cum quattuordecim regnarit, octingentesimus urbis mire celebratus, visusque apud Aegyptum Phoenix, quam volucrem ferunt anno quingentesimo ex Arabis memoratos locos advolare; atque in Aegaeo mari repente insula ingens emersit nocte, qua defectus lunae acciderat. ¹⁵ Ceterum funus, uti quondam in Prisco Tarquinio, diu occultatum, dum arte mulieris corrupti custodes aegrum simulant atque ab eo mandatam interim privigno, quem paulo ante in liberes asciverat, curam reipublicae.

She—although it was held more absurd than the former, and on that account she was fearing equal penalties—made away with her consort by poison. ¹⁴ In his sixth year, although he reigned fourteen, the eight-hundredth anniversary of the City was wondrously celebrated, and the Phoenix was seen near Egypt, which bird they report, in the five-hundredth year, to fly from Arabia to the places recorded; and in the Aegean Sea suddenly a huge island emerged on the night on which an eclipse of the moon had occurred. ¹⁵ However, the funeral, as once in the case of Priscus Tarquinius, was long concealed, while by the woman’s art the corrupted guards pretended that he was sick, and meanwhile the charge of the commonwealth, as if entrusted by him, was committed to the stepson, whom a little before he had adopted among his children.

5 ¹ Eo modo L. Domitius (nam id certe nomen Neroni, patre Domitio, erat) imperator factus est. ² Qui cum longe adolescens dominatum parem annis vitrico gessisset, quinquennium tamen tantus fuit, augenda urbe maxime, uti merito Traianus saepius testaretur procul differre cunctos principes Neronis quinquennio; quo etiam Pontum in ius provinciae Polemonis permissu redegit, cuius gratia Polemoniacus Pontus appellatur, itemque Cottias Alpes Cottio rege mortuo. ³ Quare satis compertum est neque aevum impedimento virtuti esse; eam facile mutari corrupto per licentiam ingenio, omissamque adolescentiae quasi legem perniciosius repeti.

5 ¹ In that way L. Domitius (for that certainly was Nero’s name, his father being Domitius) was made emperor. ² Who, although by far a youth, had borne a domination equal in years to his stepfather’s, yet for five years he was so great, most of all in augmenting the city, that Trajan deservedly would more than once bear witness that all princes are far outdone by Nero’s quinquennium; in which also he brought Pontus into the jurisdiction of a province with Polemon’s permission, for whose sake it is called Polemonian Pontus, and likewise the Cottian Alps, King Cottius having died. ³ Wherefore it is well ascertained that age is no impediment to virtue; that it is easily altered when the temperament is corrupted by license, and that the, as it were, law of adolescence, once dropped, is resumed more perniciously.

⁴ Namque eo dedecore reliquum vitae egit, uti pigeat pudeatque memorare huiuscemodi quempiam, nedum rectorem gentium, fuisse. ⁵ Qui dum psallere per coetus Graecorum invento in certamen coronae coepisset, eo progressus est, uti neque suae neque aliorum pudicitiae parcens, ad extremum amictus nubentium virginum specie, palam senatu, dote data, cunctis festa more celebrantibus in manum conveniret lecto ex omnibus prodigiosis. ⁶ Quod sane in eo levius aestimandum.

⁴ For indeed with that disgrace he passed the rest of his life, so that it irks and shames one to recall that anyone of this sort, to say nothing of a ruler of nations, existed. ⁵ Who, while he had begun to play the lyre among gatherings of Greeks, having devised it as a contest for a crown, advanced to this point: sparing neither his own nor others’ chastity, at the last, clothed in the guise of nuptial virgins, openly, with the senate present, a dowry having been given, with all celebrating in festive fashion, he was joined in marriage to one chosen from among all the monstrous. ⁶ Which, to be sure, is to be assessed more lightly in his case.

⁷ Quippe noxiorum vinctis modo pelle tectus ferae utrique sexui genitalia vultu contrectabat; exsector marium maiore flagitio. ⁸ Atque inter haec matrem etiam contaminavisse plures habent, dum ea quoque ardore dominandi scelere quolibet subici filium cupit. ⁹ Id ego quamquam scriptoribus diversa firmantibus verum puto.

⁷ For indeed, clothed only with the hide of a wild beast, after the fashion of bound condemned men, he would with his face handle the genitals of both sexes; a castrator of males, to greater scandal. ⁸ And among these things many hold that he also defiled his mother, while she too, in the ardor of dominating, desired to subject her son by whatever crime whatsoever. ⁹ This I, although writers affirm different things, think true.

¹⁰ Namque ubi mentem invaserint vitia, †nequaquam verecundiae externis societate humanius datur; peccandi consuetudo, nova et eo dulciora affectans, ad extremum in suos agit. ¹¹ Quod his proditum magis, dum quasi quodam progressu illa per alteros ad patrui nuptias atque alienorum cruciatibus mariti exitium, hic paulatim ad sacerdotem Vestae, deinde se, postremo uterque in sui scelus processerint. ¹² Neque blandimentis talibus tamen coalescere potuere, sed eo praeceps dati, dam insidiantur invicem, mater praeversa interiit.

¹⁰ For when vices have invaded the mind, by no means is any more humane regard for modesty afforded by the company of others; the habit of sinning, courting novelties and for that reason the sweeter, in the end drives a person against his own. ¹¹ This is made the more evident by these facts: while, as if by a certain progression, she through others advanced to a marriage with her uncle and to the destruction of her husband by the torments of strangers, he little by little to the priestess of Vesta, then to himself, and finally each advanced into his own crime. ¹² Nor yet could they grow together by such blandishments, but being carried headlong to that point, while they plot against one another, the mother, forestalled, perished.

¹³ Igitur cum omne ius fasque parricidio trivisset ac magis magisque in optimos saeviretur, coniuravere plures varia sane tempestate ad liberandam rempublicam. ¹⁴ Quis proditis caesisque immanior urbem incendio, plebem feris vulgo missis, senatam pari morte tollere decreverat, nova sede regno quaesita, maximeque incitante legato Parthorum, qui forte inter epulas aulicis, uti mos est, canentibus, cum sibi citharistam poposcisset, responso dato liberum esse, adiecerat sumeret ipse quem vellet e suis, ostentans, qui convivio aderant, quod liber sub imperio nullus haberetur. ¹⁵ Ac ni Galba, qui Hispaniae praesidebat, cognito mandatum sui exitium quamquam senecta aetate imperio correpto subvenisset, tantum facinus haud dubie patraretur.

¹³ Therefore, since he had ground down all right and divine law by parricide and was raging more and more against the best men, many conspired, at a truly variegated juncture, to liberate the commonwealth. ¹⁴ He, made more monstrous by betrayals and slaughters, had decreed to destroy the city by conflagration, to let loose wild beasts upon the populace at large, to take away the senate by an equal death, with a new seat sought for his kingship—most especially with the ambassador of the Parthians inciting him, who, by chance amid the courses with the courtiers, as is the custom, singing, when he had asked for a citharist for himself, and an answer had been given that it was permitted, added that he should take for himself whichever one he wished from his own, showing to those present at the banquet that under dominion no one was held to be free. ¹⁵ And if Galba, who was presiding over Spain, having learned that his own destruction had been ordered, had not—although of senescent age—seized the imperium and come to the rescue, such a crime would without doubt have been perpetrated.

¹⁶ Verum eius adventu desertus undique nisi ab spadone, quem quondam exsectum formare in mulierem tentaverat, semet ictu transegit, cum implorans percussorem diu ne ad mortem quidem meruisset cuiusquam officium.

¹⁶ But at his advent, deserted on all sides save by a eunuch, whom once, exsected, he had tried to fashion into a woman, he ran himself through with a blow, since, though imploring an executioner for a long time, he had not even merited anyone’s service—even for death.

17 Hic finis Caesarum genti fuit: quem fore prodigiorum multa denuntiavere praecipueque eorum praediis arescens lauri nemus dicatum triumphantibus atque interitus gallinarum, quae adeo multae albaeque erant, aptioresque religionibus, ut iis Romae habeatur hodie locus.

17 This was the end of the race of the Caesars: that it would be, many prodigies foretold, and especially, on their estates, the withering of the laurel grove dedicated to triumphators, and the death of the hens, which were so many and white, and more apt for religious rites, that a place is maintained at Rome for them today.

6 ¹ At Galba, haud secus nobilis e gente clarissima Sulpiciorum, ubi Romam ingressus est, quasi luxuriae aut etiam crudelitati auxilio ventitavisset, rapere trahere vexare ac foedum in modum vastare cuncta et polluere. ² Quia rebus intestabilior (dum gravius offendunt, quos mollius consultaturos spes erat), simul quia opes militum nimis pecuniae cupidus attenuaverat, Othone auctore interficitur; qui praelatum adoptione eius Pisonem impatientius dolens accensas cohortes armatasque in forum deduxerat. ³ Quo cum lorica tectus Galba tumultum leniturus contenderet, ad lacum Curtium caesus est mense imperii ac die septimo.

6 ¹ But Galba, no less noble from the most illustrious clan of the Sulpicii, when he entered Rome, as if he had come to give aid to luxury or even to cruelty, began to snatch, drag, harry, and in a foul manner to lay waste and defile everything. ² Because he was more detestable in his measures (in that he more gravely offended those from whom there had been hope of gentler deliberation), and at the same time because, being too desirous of money, he had diminished the resources of the soldiers, he is killed at Otho’s instigation; who, chafing more impatiently that Piso had been preferred by his adoption, had led the inflamed cohorts, under arms, into the forum. ³ When Galba, protected by a cuirass, was hastening thither to soothe the tumult, he was cut down at the Lacus Curtius, in the seventh month and on the seventh day of his rule.

7 ¹ Igitur Salvius Otho, Neroni quondam criminose familiaris, haud multo fine adolescentiae grandior potentiam invadit. ² Qua dies fere quinque et octoginta praecognitis moribus potitus, postquam a Vitellio, qui e Gallia descenderat, Veronensi proelio pulsus est, mortem sibimet conscivit.

7 ¹ Therefore Salvius Otho, once criminally familiar with Nero, scarcely older than the end of adolescence, seized power. ² Having held it for about 85 days, with his manners previously known, after he was routed by Vitellius, who had descended from Gaul, in the battle of Verona, he took his own life.

8 ¹ Ita ad Aulum Vitellium potestas delata, quae progressu funestior talibus initiis foret, si Vespasianus aliquamdiu Iudaeoram bello, quod Neronis iussu sasceperat, impensius attineretur. ² Is ubi gesta per Galbam ipsumque oppressum accepit, simul quoniam legati Moesiae Pannonicique exercitus hortantium venerant, imperium capit. ³ Namque milites praedicti, postquam Othonem praetoriis, Vitellium Germanicianis legionibus factum comperere, aemuli, ut inter se solent, ne dissimiles viderentur, Vespasianum perpulere, in quem iam Syriacae cohortes ob egregia vitae consenserant.

8 ¹ Thus to Aulus Vitellius the power was delivered, which in its progress would have been more funereal from such beginnings, if Vespasian had for some time been held more intently by the war of the Jews, which he had undertaken by Nero’s order. ² He, when he learned what had been done under Galba and that he himself had been overthrown, at the same time since envoys of Moesia and of the Pannonian army had come urging him, takes up the imperium. ³ For the aforesaid soldiers, after they discovered that Otho had been made [emperor] by the Praetorians, and Vitellius by the German legions, being rivals, as they are wont among themselves, lest they seem unlike, compelled Vespasian—upon whom the Syrian cohorts had already agreed on account of the excellence of his life.

⁴ Quippe Vespasianus nova senator familia Reatinis maioribus industria rebusque pacis ac militiae longe nobilis habebatur. ⁵ Huius legatorum in Italiam transgressu fusisque apud Cremonam suis Vitellius ab Sabino urbi praefecto, Vespasiani fratre, sestertium milies pepigerat arbitris militibus imperio decedere; sed postquam mox circumventum se nuntio ratas est, quasi renovato furore ipsum ceterosque adversae partis cum Capitolio, quod saluti remedium ceperant, cremavit. ⁶ Ast ubi vera esse ac propinquare hostes patefactum est, productus e tugurio, quo se abdiderat, ianitoris iniecto laqueo parricidarum more ad scalas Gemonias perque eas pertractus; simul ictibus, quantum quisque valuerat, confosso corpore in Tiberim deicitur, tyrannidis octavo mense, annos natus septuaginta et quinque amplius.

⁴ For Vespasian, of a new senatorial family with Reatine ancestors, was held to be by far noble for his industry and for affairs of peace and of military. ⁵ Upon the crossing of his legates into Italy and his forces being routed at Cremona, Vitellius, through Sabinus the city prefect, brother of Vespasian, had bargained, with the soldiers as arbiters, to relinquish the imperial power for 100,000,000 sesterces; but after he soon supposed, upon a message, that he was being surrounded, as if with fury renewed he burned Sabinus himself and the others of the opposing party together with the Capitol, which they had taken as a remedy for their safety. ⁶ But when it was disclosed that the report was true and that the enemies were drawing near, he was brought out of the hut in which he had hidden himself, with a noose thrown on by a doorkeeper, in the manner of parricides, to the Gemonian Stairs and dragged along them; at the same time, his body, stabbed with blows as much as each man had the strength, is thrown into the Tiber, in the 8th month of his tyranny, having been born more than 75 years before.

7 Hi omnes, quos paucis attigi, praecipueque Caesarum gens adeo litteris culti atque eloquentia fuere, ut, ni cunctis vitiis absque Augusto nimii forent, tantae artes profecto texissent modica flagitia. ⁸ Quis rebus quamquam satis constet praestare mores, tamen bono cuique, praesertim summo rectori, utroque, si queat, iuxta opus: sin aliter, vitae proposito immensum regrediente elegantiae saltem atque eruditionis sumat auctoritatem.

7 All these, whom I have touched upon in a few words, and especially the race of the Caesars, were to such a degree cultivated in letters and in eloquence that, if they had not—Augustus excepted—been excessive in every vice, such arts would assuredly have covered over faults of a moderate sort. ⁸ Although it is sufficiently agreed that morals excel these things, nevertheless for any good man, especially the highest ruler, there is need of both alike, if he can: but if otherwise, with the purpose of life retreating immensely, let him at least take authority from elegance and erudition.

9 ¹ Hoc item ex genere Vespasianus, sanctus omnia, facundiae haud egens promendia, quae senserat, exsanguem diu fessumque terrarum orbepa brevi refecit. ² Namque primum satellites tyrannidis, nisi qui forte atrocius longe processerant, flectere potius maluit quam excruciatos delere, prudentissime ratus nefaria ministeria a pluribus metu curari. ³ Dein coniurationum multas scelere inulto abscedere patiebatur, comiter, uti erat, stultitiae coarguens, qui ignorarent, quanta moles molestiaque imperio inesset.

9 ¹ Likewise of this stock was Vespasian, upright in all things, by no means lacking the means of eloquence; by what he had perceived, he in a short time restored to vigor the bloodless and long-wearied orb of the lands, the world. ² For first he preferred to bend the henchmen of tyranny—except those who perchance had advanced far more atrociously—rather than to destroy them under tortures, most prudently deeming that nefarious ministries are dealt with in more people by fear. ³ Then he allowed many conspiracies to withdraw with their crime unavenged, kindly—as he was—convicting of folly those who were ignorant how great a mass and molestation inheres in rule.

⁴ Simul divinis deditus (quorum vera plerisque negotiis compererat), successores fidebat liberos Titum ac Domitianum fore. ⁵ Praeterea legibus aequissimis monendoque, quodque vehementius est, vitae specie vitiorum plura aboleverat. ⁶ Infirmus tamen, uti quidam prave putant, adversum pecuniam, cum satis constet aerarii inopia ac labe urbium novas eum neque aliquamdiu postea habitas vectigalium pensiones exquisivisse.

⁴ At the same time, devoted to divine matters (the truths of which he had discovered in very many affairs), he trusted that his children, Titus and Domitian, would be successors. ⁵ Moreover, by most equitable laws and by admonishing, and—what is more vehement—by the very appearance of his life, he had abolished more vices. ⁶ Yet he was, as some wrongly think, weak in regard to money, although it is quite agreed that, because of the poverty of the treasury and the blight of the cities, he had sought out new imposts of taxes and levies not kept up for some time thereafter.

⁷ Namque Romae Capitolium, quod conflagravisse supra memoravimus, aedes Pacis, Claudii monumenta, amphitheatri tanta vis, multaque alia ac forum coepta seu patrata. ⁸ Adhuc per omnes terras, qua ius Romanum est, renovatae urbes culta egregio viaeque operibus maximis munitae et cavati montes per Flaminiam prono transgressui. ⁹ Quae tot tantaque brevi coufecta intactis cultoribus prudentiam magis quam avaritiam probavere; simul censu more veterum exercito senatu motus probrosior quisque, ac lectis undique optimis viris mille gentes compositae, cum ducentas aegerrime repperisset exstinctis saevitia tyrannorum plerisque.

⁷ For at Rome the Capitol, which we have mentioned above had burned down, the temple of Peace, the monuments of Claudius, such a mass of the amphitheater, and many other things and the forum, were either begun or completed. ⁸ Moreover, through all lands where Roman law prevails, cities were renewed, splendidly adorned, and roads were fortified with very great works, and mountains were hollowed through along the Flaminian Way for an easy passage. ⁹ Which things, so many and so great, accomplished in a short time with the inhabitants untouched, proved prudence rather than avarice; at the same time, a census having been conducted in the manner of the ancients, each more disgraceful man was removed from the senate, and, the best men chosen from everywhere, a thousand peoples were composed, although he had with the greatest difficulty found two hundred, most having been extinguished by the savagery of the tyrants.

¹⁰ Ac bello rex Parthorum Vologesus in pacem coactus atque in provinciam Syria, cui Palaestinae nomen, Iudaeique annitente filio Tito, quem transgrediens in Italiam reliquerat externae militiae moxque victorem praefectura praetorio extulerat. ¹¹ Unde etiam is honos, ingens a principio, tumidior atque alter ab Augusto imperio fuit. ¹² Verum hac tempestate dum honorum honestas despectatur mixtique bonis indocti ac prudentibus inertes sunt, fecere nomen plerique potentia vacuum insolensque miseris, subiectum pessimo cuique et annonae specie rapax.

¹⁰ And in war the king of the Parthians, Vologeses, was compelled into peace; and, in the province Syria, which has the name Palestine, the Jews too, with his son Titus striving—whom, as he was crossing over into Italy, he had left in foreign soldiery and soon, as a victor, had exalted to the Praetorian Prefecture. ¹¹ Whence also that honor, great from the beginning, became more swollen and was second after the Augustan power. ¹² But at this time, while the honesty of honors is despised and the unlearned are mixed with the good and the inert with the prudent, many have made the name empty of power and insolent to the wretched, subjected to every worst man and rapacious under the guise of the grain-supply.

10 ¹ Ceterum Titus postquam imperium adeptus est, incredibile quantum, quem imitabatur, anteierit, praesertim litteris clementiaque ac muneribus. ² Denique cum concessa per priores principes firmari ab insequentibus mos esset, simul imperium cepit, talia possidentibus edicto sponte cavit prospexitque. ³ Neque minus sancte facilis in tuendis, qui forte in se coniuravissent, adeo ut, cum amplissimi ordinis duo abnuere cogitatum scelus nequirent patresque censuissent de confessis supplicium sumendum, deductos in spectaculum se utrimque assidere iusserit petitoque ex industria gladiatoris, quorum pugnae visebantur, gladio, quasi ad explorandam aciem uni atque alteri committeret.

10 ¹ Moreover, after Titus had attained the imperium, it is incredible how far he outdid the one whom he emulated, especially in letters, clemency, and munificence. ² Finally, whereas it was the custom that things granted by former principes be confirmed by their successors, as soon as he took the imperium, by edict he of his own accord made provision and gave safeguards for those possessing such grants. ³ Nor was he less, with sacred scruple, easy in protecting even those who might perchance have conspired against himself, to such a degree that, when two of the most distinguished order could not deny the conceived crime and the Fathers had decreed that punishment be exacted from the confessors, he ordered them, led down into the spectacle, to sit on either side of himself; and, purposely requesting from a gladiator—whose combats were being viewed—a sword, as if to test the edge he entrusted it to the one and to the other.

⁴ Quis perculsis et constantiam mirantibus: "Videtisne", inquit, "potestates fato dari frustraque tentari facinus potiundi spe vel amittendi metu?" Ita biennio post ac menses fere novem amphitheatri perfecto opere lautusque veneno interiit, anno aevi quadragesimo, cum eius pater septuagesimo obisset, imperator decennii. ⁶ Huius sane mors adeo provinciis luctui fuit, uti generis humani delicias appellantes orbatum orbem deflerent.

⁴ With them stunned and marveling at his constancy: "Do you see," he said, "that powers are given by fate, and that a crime is attempted in vain, by the hope of getting possession or the fear of losing?" Thus, 2 years and about 9 months later, with the work of the amphitheater completed, and after a bath he perished by poison, in the 40th year of his age, when his father had died in the 70th, an emperor of 10 years. ⁶ His death, assuredly, was so much a mourning to the provinces that, calling him the delight of the human race, they bewailed the world as bereft.

11 ¹ Igitur Domitianus fratris atque imperatoris optimi nece, privato scelere publicoque amentior, simul maculosae adolescentiae praedas caedem supplicia agere occepit. ² Maior libidinum flagitio ac plus quam superbe utens patribus, quippe qui se dominum deumque dici coegerit; quod confestim ab insequentibus remotum validius multo posthac deincepa rettulere. ³ Sed Domitianus primo clementiam simulans neque adeo iners domi belloque tolerantior videbatur.

11 ¹ Therefore Domitian, upon the slaying of his brother and of the best emperor, more insane through private and public crime, at once began to carry out the plunders, the slaughter, the punishments of his stained adolescence. ² Greater in the flagitious disgrace of lusts and using the senators more than superbly, seeing that he forced himself to be called lord and god; which was forthwith removed by those who followed, and much later thereafter they reaffirmed it more vigorously. ³ But Domitian at first, simulating clemency, and not so inert, seemed more enduring both at home and in war.

⁴ Idcircoque Dacis et Cattorum manu devictis Septembrem Octobremque menses Germanici superiorem, e suo nomine alterum appellaverat; multaque operum inchoata per patrem vel fratris studio atque inprimis Capitolium absolvit. ⁵ Dehinc atrox caedibus bonorum segnisque ridicule remotis procul omnibus muscarum agmina persequebatur, postquam ad libidinem minus virium erat, cuius foedum exercitium Graecorum lingua klinopalhn vocabat. ⁶ Hincque iocorum pleraque: nam percontanti cuidam, quispiamnet in palatio esset, responsum: Ne musca quidem, nisi forte apud palaestram.

⁴ And therefore, with the Dacians and the hand of the Chatti conquered, he had named the months September and October—the former “Germanicus,” the other from his own name; and he finished many works begun through his father or by the zeal of his brother, and especially the Capitol. ⁵ Thereafter, cruel in the slaughters of good men and, sluggish, ludicrously, with all kept far away, he would pursue swarms of flies, after there was less strength for lust, the foul exercise of which he called, in the tongue of the Greeks, klinopalēn. ⁶ And hence most of the jests: for, to someone asking whether there were anyone at all in the palace, the reply was: Not even a fly, unless perhaps at the palaestra.

⁷ Is ergo magis magisque saevitia nimias eoque suspectior etiam suis libertorum consilio uxore non ignara, quae amorem histrionis viro praetulerat, poenas luit, quinto et quadragesimo vitae anno, dominationis circiter quintodecimo. ⁸ At senatus gladiatoris more funus ferri radendumque nomen decrevit. ⁹ Quo moti milites, quibus privatae commoditates dispendio publice largius procedunt, auctores necis ad supplicium petere more suo seditiosius coeperunt.

⁷ Therefore he, with savagery growing more and more excessive and on that account more suspect even to his own, by the counsel of freedmen, his wife not ignorant—who had preferred the love of a histrion (actor) to her husband—paid the penalties, in the 45th year of life, in about the 15th of his reign. ⁸ But the senate decreed that his funeral be carried in the manner of a gladiator and that his name be scraped away. ⁹ Moved by this, the soldiers—whose private advantages advance more lavishly at public expense—began, more seditiously and in their own fashion, to demand that the authors of the murder be given over to punishment.

¹⁰ Qui vix aegreque per prudentes cohibiti tandem in gratiam optimatum convenere. ¹¹ Neque minus per se moliebantur bellum, quod his conversum imperium maestitiae erat ob amissionem praedarum per dona munifica.

¹⁰ Who, scarcely and with difficulty, restrained by the prudent, at length came into favor with the optimates. ¹¹ Nor were they any less on their own contriving war, because the rule turned toward them was a matter of sadness on account of the loss of booty through munificent gifts.

12 Hactenus Romae seu per Italiam orti imperium rexere, hinc advenae quoque; nescio an ut in Prisco Tarquinio longe meliores. ¹³ Ac mihi quidem audienti multa legentique plane compertum urbem Romam externorum virtute atque insitivis artibus praecipue crevisse.

12 Up to this point, those born at Rome or throughout Italy have ruled the imperium; from here on, newcomers too—perhaps, as with Tarquinius Priscus, far better. ¹³ And to me indeed, from hearing much and reading, it has been plainly ascertained that the city of Rome grew chiefly by the virtue of foreigners and by engrafted arts.

12 ¹ Quid enim Nerva Cretensi prudentiua maximeque moderatum? ² Qui cum extrerna aetate apud Sequanos, quo tyranni decessit metu, imperium arbitrio legionum cepisset, ubi perspexit nisi a superioribus robustioribusque corpore animoque geri non posse, mense sexto ac decimo semet eo abdicavit, dedicato prius foro, quod appellatur Pervium, quo aedes Minervae eminentior consurgit et magnificentior. ³ Id cum semper egregium sit metiri, quantum queas, neque ambitione praeceps agi, tum in imperio, cuius adeo cupidi mortales sunt, ut id vel ultima senectus avide petat.

12 ¹ For what was more prudent and most especially moderate than Nerva the Cretan? ² Who, when in extreme age among the Sequani—whither the tyrant had withdrawn from fear—he had taken the command by the arbitration of the legions, when he perceived that it could not be borne save by men superior and more robust in body and spirit, in the sixteenth month abdicated himself from it, first dedicating a forum, which is called Pervium, where the temple of Minerva rises more eminent and more magnificent. ³ This is always excellent—to measure how much you can, and not be driven headlong by ambition—especially in command, of which mortals are so desirous that even utmost old age seeks it greedily.

⁴ Huc accedit, quod suffecti virtute quantus consilio esset, magis magisque patefecit.

⁴ To this is added that, by the virtue of the man appointed in his stead, he disclosed more and more how great he was in counsel.

13 ¹ Namque Ulpium Traianum Italica, urbe Hispaniae, ortum, amplissimi ordinis tainen atque etiam consulari loco, arrogatum accepit dedit. ² Hoc aegre clarior domi seu militiae reperietur. ³ Quippe primus aut solus etiam vires Romanas trans Istrum propagavit domitis in provinciam Dacorum pileatis †satisque nationibus, Decibalo rege ac †Sardonios; simul ad ortum solis cunctae gentes, quae inter Indum et Euphratem amnes inclitos sunt, concussae bello, atque imperati obsides Persarum regi, nomine Cosdroe, et inter ea iter conditum per feras gentes, quo facile ab usque Pontico mari in Galliam permeatur.

13 ¹ For he accepted and bestowed adoption upon Ulpius Traianus, sprung from Italica, a city of Hispania, yet of the most ample order and even of consular rank. ² In this man one will scarcely find anyone more illustrious either at home or in military service. ³ For he first, or even alone, propagated Roman forces beyond the Ister, the cap-wearing Dacians subdued into a province, with †enough nations, King Decibalus, and the †Sardonii; at the same time all the peoples at the rising of the sun, who are between the renowned rivers Indus and Euphrates, were shaken by war, and hostages were exacted for the king of the Persians, by name Cosdroe, and among these things a route was founded through wild nations, by which it is easy to pass from the Pontic Sea all the way into Gaul.

⁴ Castra suspectioribus atque opportunis locis exstructa, ponsque Danubio impositus, ac deductae coloniarum pleraeque. ⁵ Adhuc Romae a Domitiano coepta forum atque alia multa plusquam magnifice coluit ornavitque, et annonae perpetuae mire consultum reperto firmatoque pistorum collegio, simul noscendis ocius, quae ubique e republica gerebantur, admota media publici cursus. ⁶ Quod equidem munus satis utile in pestem orbis Romani vertit posteriorum avaritia insolentiaque, nisi quod his annis suffectae vires Illyrico sunt praefecto medente Anatolio.

⁴ Camps were constructed in rather more suspect and opportune places, and a bridge was set upon the Danube, and most of the colonies were planted. ⁵ Furthermore at Rome he tended and adorned the forum and many other things begun by Domitian more than magnificently, and admirable provision was made for a perpetual grain-supply by the discovery and strengthening of the bakers’ collegium, and at the same time, for learning more quickly what was being done everywhere on behalf of the commonwealth, the means of the public post (cursus publicus) were applied. ⁶ Which function indeed, quite useful, was turned into a pest of the Roman world by the avarice and insolence of those who came after, except that in these years strength has been supplied to Illyricum, with the prefect Anatolius administering a remedy.

⁷ Adeo boni malive in republica nihil est, quod in diversum traduci aequeat moribus praesidentium. ⁸ Aequus clemens patientissimus atque in amicos perfidelis, quippe qui Surae familiari opus sacraverit, quae Suranae sunt: ⁹ usque eo innocentiae fidens, uti praefectum praetorio Suburanum nomine, cum insigne potestatia, uti mos erat, pugionem daret, crebro monuerit: "Tibi istum ad munimentum mei committo, si recte agam; sin aliter, in me magis": quod moderatorem omnium vel errare minus fas sit. ¹⁰ Quin etiam vinolentiam, quo vitio uti Nerva angebatur, prudentia molliverat, curari vetans iussa post longiores epulas.

⁷ To such a degree, there is nothing of good or of ill in the republic that cannot be translated into the opposite by the mores of those presiding. ⁸ Fair, clement, most patient, and most faithful toward friends, inasmuch as he consecrated to his familiar Sura the works that are Suran. ⁹ So far trusting in innocence that, when he gave to the prefect of the praetorian guard, Suburanus by name, the dagger, the insignia of power, as was the custom, he often warned: “I entrust this to you for the defense of me, if I act rightly; but if otherwise, against me rather”—since for the moderator of all it is less lawful even to err. ¹⁰ Indeed, he had also softened vinolence—by which vice Nerva was afflicted—by prudence, forbidding orders to be attended to after more prolonged banquets.

¹¹ His virtutibus acto imperio annos prope viginti, cum terrae motu gravi apud Antiochiam ceteraque Syriae extremis afficeretur, rogatu patrum Italiam repetens morbo periit grandaeva aetate ascito prius ad imperium Hadriano civi propinquoque. ¹² Abhinc divisa nomina Caesarum atque Augusti inductumque in rempublicam, uti duo seu plures summae potentiae dissimiles cognomento ac potestate dispari sint. ¹³ Quamquam alii Plotinae, Traiani coniugis, favore imperium assecutum putent, quae viri testamento heredem regni institutum simulaverat.

¹¹ With these virtues, having administered the empire for nearly twenty years, when he was afflicted by a severe earthquake at Antioch and the other extremities of Syria, at the request of the Fathers returning to Italy he died of illness at a very advanced age, having first called to the imperium Hadrian, a fellow-citizen and kinsman. ¹² From this point the names of Caesar and of Augustus were divided, and it was introduced into the republic that two or more of the highest power be dissimilar by cognomen and unequal in authority. ¹³ Although others think that he attained the imperial power by the favor of Plotina, Trajan’s consort, who had simulated that by her husband’s testament an heir of the realm had been instituted.

14 ¹ Igitur Aelius Hadrianus eloquio togaeque studiis accommodatior pace ad orientem composita Romam regreditur. ² Ibi Graecorum more seu Pompilii Numae caerimonias leges gymnasia doctoresque curare occepit, ³ adeo quidem, ut etiam ludum ingenuarum artium, quod Athenaeum vocant, ⁴ constitueret atque initia Cereris Liberaeque, quae Eleusina dicitur, Atheniensium modo Roma percoleret. ⁵ Deinde, uti solet tranquillis rebus, remissior rus proprium Tibur secessit permissa urbe Lucio Aelio Caesari.

14 ¹ Therefore Aelius Hadrian, more suited to eloquence and to the studies of the toga, with peace arranged toward the East, returned to Rome. ² There, in the manner of the Greeks or of Numa Pompilius, he began to care for ceremonies, laws, gymnasia, and teachers, ³ to such a degree that he even established a school of liberal arts, which they call the Athenaeum, ⁴ and he cultivated at Rome, in the Athenian mode, the initiations of Ceres and Liber, which is called the Eleusinian. ⁵ Then, as is wont in tranquil affairs, more relaxed he withdrew to his own country estate at Tibur, the city having been entrusted to Lucius Aelius Caesar.

⁶ Ipse, uti beatis locupletibus mos, palatia exstruere, curare epulas signa tabulas pictas; postremo omnia satis anxie prospicere, quae luxus lasciviaeque essent. ⁷ Hinc orti rumores mali iniecisse stupra puberibus atque Antinoi flagravisse famoso ministerio neque alia de causa urbem conditam eius nomine aut locasse ephebo statuas. ⁸ Quae quidem alii pia volunt religiosaque: quippe Hadriano cupiente fatum producere, cum voluntarium ad vicem magi poposcissent, cunctis retractantibus Antinoum obiecisse se referunt, hincque in eum officia supra dicta.

⁶ He himself, as is the custom for the blessed wealthy, to construct palaces, to attend to banquets, statues, painted panels; finally to look rather anxiously after all things that were of luxury and lasciviousness. ⁷ Hence arose evil rumors that he had inflicted debaucheries upon adolescents and had burned with infamous service for Antinous, and that for no other cause was a city founded in his name or were statues set up to the ephebe. ⁸ Which indeed others would have to be pious and religious: for, with Hadrian desiring to prolong fate, when the magi had demanded a volunteer in substitution, with all drawing back they report that Antinous offered himself, and hence toward him the aforesaid observances.

⁹ Nos rem in medio relinquemus quamquam in remisso ingenio suspectam aestimantes societatem aevi longe imparilis. ¹⁰ Interim Aelio Caesare mortuo, cum ipse animo parum valeret idcircoque despectui haberetur, ad creandum Caesarem patres convocat. ¹¹ Quibus propere accurrentibus forte Antoninum conspexit senis soceri aut genitoris anxios gressus levantem manu.

⁹ We shall leave the matter in the middle, although, considering in a remiss disposition the society of an age far unequal, we deem it suspect. ¹⁰ Meanwhile, with Aelius Caesar dead, since he himself was little strong in spirit and therefore was held in contempt, he calls together the fathers to create a Caesar. ¹¹ As they were running up in haste, by chance he caught sight of Antoninus lifting with his hand the anxious steps of an old man, either a father-in-law or a begetter.

Quo mire oblectatus adoptatum legibus Caesarem iubet, statimque ab eo senatus, cui ludibrio fuerat, magnam partem necari. ¹² Neque multo post apud Baias tabe interiit, anno imperii absque mense vicesimo secundo, senecta viridiore. ¹³ At patres ne principis oratu quidem ad Divi honorem eidem deferendum flectebantur; tantum amissos sui ordinis tot viros maerebant.

Wonderfully delighted by this, he orders him, according to the laws, to be adopted as Caesar, and immediately by him a great part of the senate, by whom he had been a laughing-stock, to be put to death. ¹² And not long after, at Baiae, he perished of a wasting disease, in the twenty-second year of his reign, short of a month, in rather youthful old age. ¹³ But the Fathers were not bent, not even by the entreaty of the princeps, to confer upon him the honor of a Divus; they only mourned the so many men of their own order who had been lost.

¹⁴ Sed postquam subito prodiere, quorum exitium dolori erat, quique suos complexi, censent quod abnuerant.

¹⁴ But after those suddenly came forth, whose destruction had been a cause of grief, and who, having embraced their own, they decree what they had refused.

15 ¹ Atque Aurelio Antonino cognomentum Pii. Hunc fere nulla vitiorum labes commaculavit. ² Vir veterrimae familiae, e Lanuvino municipio, senator urbis; ³ adeo aequalis probisque moribus, uti plane docuerit neque iugi pace ac longo otio absoluta ingenia corrumpi, eoque demum fortunatas urbes fore, si regna sapientiae sint.

15 ¹ And to Aurelius Antoninus the cognomen “Pius.” Hardly any stain of vices besmirched him. ² A man of a most ancient family, from the Lanuvian municipium, a senator of the city; ³ so even-tempered and with upright morals, that he plainly taught that accomplished talents are not corrupted by continuous peace and long leisure, and that only then will cities be fortunate, if the reign is that of wisdom.

⁴ Denique annis, quibus publica egit, viginti idem mansit, celebrato magnifice urbis nongentesimo. ⁵ Nisi forte triumphorum expertem socordiae videtur; quod longe secus est, cum maius haud dubie sit neque quemquam turbare ausum composita neque ipsum ostentandi sui bellum fecisse quietis gentibus. ⁶ Quin etiam maribus frustratus filiae viro reipublicae consultavit.

⁴ Finally, in the years during which he administered public affairs, for twenty he remained the same, the nine-hundredth anniversary of the City having been celebrated magnificently. ⁵ Unless perhaps his being without triumphs seems a mark of sloth; which is far otherwise, since it is without doubt a greater thing that no one dared to disturb the settled order, and that he himself did not wage war upon quiet peoples for the ostentation of himself. ⁶ Nay even, being disappointed of male children, he took counsel for the Republic by providing his daughter with a husband.

16 ¹ Namque M. Boionium, qui Aurelius Antoninus habetur, eodem oppido, pari nobilitate, philosophandi vero eloquentiaeque studiis longe praestantem, in familiam atque imperium ascivit. ² Cuius divina omnia domi militiaeque facta consultaque; quae imprudentia regendae coniugia attaminavit, quae in tantum petulantiae proruperat, ut in Campania sedens amoena litorum obsideret ad legendes ex nauticis, quia plerumque nudi agunt, flagitiis aptiores. ³ Igitur Aurelius socero apud Lorios anno vitae post quintum et septuagesimum mortuo confestim fratrem Lucium Verum in societatem potentiae accepit.

16 ¹ For he took M. Boionius, who is held to be Aurelius Antoninus, from the same town, of equal nobility, yet far excelling in the pursuits of philosophizing and of eloquence, into his household and into imperial power. ² All his deeds and counsels at home and in the field were divine; but an imprudence in governing his marriage he contaminated, which had burst forth into such petulance that, sitting in Campania, he would beset the pleasant shores to select from the sailors—since for the most part they go about naked—those more apt for disgraces. ³ Therefore Aurelius, when his father-in-law died at Lorium in the year of life after the seventy-fifth, straightway received his brother Lucius Verus into a partnership of power.

⁴ Eius ductu Persae, cum primum superavissent, ad extremum triumpho cessere, rege Vologeso. ⁵ Lucius paucis diebus moritur, hincque materies fingendi dolo consanguinei circumventum; ⁶ quem ferunt, cum invidia gestarum rerum angeretur, fraudem inter coenam exercuisse. ⁷ Namque lita veneno cultri parte vulvae frustum, quod de industria solum erat, eo praecidit consumptoque uno, uti mos est inter familiares, alterum, qua virus contigerat, germano porrexit.

⁴ Under his leadership the Persians, though at first they had prevailed, in the end yielded to a triumph, with King Vologeses. ⁵ Lucius dies in a few days, and hence there was material for inventing that by a kinsman’s trick he had been circumvented; ⁶ whom they report, since he was choked with envy of the deeds achieved, to have practiced a fraud during dinner. ⁷ For with a part of the knife smeared with poison he cut off a morsel of womb, which alone was so by design, with that; and when one had been consumed, as is the custom among familiars, the other, where the poison had touched, he proffered to his brother.

⁸ Haec in tanto viro credere nisi animi ad scelus proni non queunt, ⁹ quippe cum Lucium satis constet Altini, Venetiae urbe, morbo consumptum, tantumque Marco sapientiae lenitudinis innocentiae ac litterarum fuisse, ut is Marcomannos cum filio Commodo, quem Caesarem suffecerat, petiturus philosophorum turba obtestantium circumfunderetur, ne expeditioni aut pugnae se prius committeret, quam sectarum ardua ac perocculta explanavisset. ¹⁰ Ita †incerta belli in eius salute doctrinae studiis metuebantur; tantumque illo imperante floruere artes bonae, ut illam gloriam etiam temporum putem. ¹¹ Legum ambigua mire distincta, vadimoniorumque sollemni remoto denuntiandae litis operiendaeque ad diem commode ius introductum.

⁸ Such things about so great a man none can believe except minds prone to crime, ⁹ since it is well agreed that Lucius at Altinum, a city of Venetia, was consumed by disease, and that Marcus possessed such wisdom, mildness, innocence, and letters, that when he was about to seek the Marcomanni with his son Commodus, whom he had appointed Caesar, he was surrounded by a crowd of philosophers beseeching him not to commit himself to an expedition or to battle before he had explained the arduous and most hidden matters of the philosophical sects. ¹⁰ Thus the uncertainties of war were feared, since the safety of doctrinal studies lay in him; and the liberal arts flourished so greatly under his rule that I deem even the times to share that glory. ¹¹ The ambiguities of the laws were marvelously distinguished, and, the solemnity of recognizances removed, a convenient law was introduced for the denouncing of a suit and for awaiting the day.

¹² Data cunctis promiscue civitas Romana, multaeque urbes conditae deductae repositae ornataeque, atque inprimis Poenorum Garthago, quam ignis foede consumpserat, Asiaeque Ephesus ac Bithyniae Nicomedia constratae terrae motu, aeque ac nostra aetate Nicomedia Cereali consule. ¹³ Triumphi acti ex nationibus, quae regi Marcomaro ab usque urbe Pannoniae, cui Carnuto nomen est, ad media Gallorum protendebantur. ¹⁴ Ita anno imperii octavo decimoque aevi validior Vendobonae interiit, maximo gemitu mortalium omnium.

¹² Roman citizenship was given indiscriminately to all, and many cities were founded, colonized, restored, and adorned, and especially the Carthage of the Punics, which fire had foully consumed, and Ephesus in Asia and Nicomedia in Bithynia, laid low by an earthquake, just as in our own age Nicomedia, when Cerialis was consul. ¹³ Triumphs were celebrated over nations which, under King Marcomarus, stretched from the city of Pannonia which has the name Carnuntum, to the central parts of the Gauls. ¹⁴ And so, in the 18th year of his reign, still stronger in the vigor of his age, he perished at Vindobona, with the greatest lamentation of all mortals.

¹⁵ Denique, qui seiuncti in aliis, patres ac vulgus soli omnia decrevere, templa columnas sacerdotes.

¹⁵ Finally, those who, separated in other matters, the fathers and the common crowd alone decreed everything, temples columns priests.

17 ¹ At filius saeva a principio dominatione detestabilior habebatur, praecipue per maiorum controversam memoriam; quae posteris usque eo gravis est, ut absque communi in impios odio quasi corruptores generis exaecrabiliores sint. ² Bello plane impiger quo in Quados prospere gesto Septembrem mensem Commodum appellaverat. ³ Moenia Romae potentia vix digna lavandi usui instituit.

17 ¹ But the son was held more detestable from the beginning by a savage domination, especially on account of the controversial memory of his ancestors; which is to posterity so grievous that, over and above the common hatred toward the impious, they are as if more execrable, as corrupters of the stock. ² Plainly energetic in war, in that campaign against the Quadi, conducted successfully, he had named the month September “Commodus.” ³ He instituted for the use of washing things scarcely worthy of the power of Rome.

⁴ Immiti prorsus feroque ingenie, adeo quidem, uti gladiatores specie depugnandi crebro trucidaret, cum ipse ferro, obiecti mucronibus plumbeis uterentur. ⁵ Cumque eo modo plures confecisset, forte eum Scaeva nomine, andacia ac robore corporis pugnandique arte pervigens, ab studio tali deterruit; qui spreto gladio, quem inutilem cernebat, sufficere utrique ait, quo armabatur ipse. ⁶ Eo metu, ne inter congressum, uti solet, extorto pugione conficeretur, Scaevam removit, atque ad alios formidolosior in feras beluasque ferociam convertit.

⁴ Of a thoroughly harsh and feral disposition—indeed to such a degree that he frequently butchered gladiators under the show of combat—while he himself used steel, they employed blades with leaden points that had been issued to them. ⁵ And when in that way he had dispatched several, by chance a man named Scaeva, excelling in audacity and strength of body and in the art of fighting, deterred him from such a pursuit; who, scorning the sword, which he saw was useless, said that what he himself was armed with sufficed for both. ⁶ From fear, lest in the encounter, as is his wont, he should be done in with a dagger wrenched away, he removed Scaeva, and, more timorous toward others, he turned his ferocity upon wild beasts and monsters.

⁷ Quis rebus cum insatiabilem sanguinis cuncti horrescerent, coniuravere in eum maxime proximus; quippe dominationi adeo fidus nemo, ipsique satellites, dum incestam mentem pronamque in saevitiam cavent, a quibus eorum potentia sustentatur, quoquomodo subruere tutius putant et Commodum quidem primo occultatius veneno petivere anno regni tertio fere atque decimo. ⁸ Cuius vis frustrata per cibum, quo se casu repleverat; cum tamen alvi dolorem causaretur, auctore medico, principe factionis, in palaestram perrexit. ⁹ Ibi per ministrum ungendi (nam forte is quoque e consilio erat) faucibus quasi arte exercitii bracchiorum nodo validius pressis exspiravit.

⁷ For which reasons, since all shuddered at his insatiable thirst for blood, they conspired against him—most of all those nearest; for no one was so faithful to his domination, and his very satellites, while they are on guard against his defiled mind prone to savagery—by whom the power of such men is sustained—think it safer to undermine it somehow; and indeed they first assailed Commodus more covertly with poison, in about the 13th year of his reign. ⁸ Its force was thwarted by food, with which by chance he had filled himself; since, however, he alleged pain of the belly, at the urging of the physician, the leader of the faction, he went off to the palaestra (wrestling-ground). ⁹ There, by the attendant for anointing (for by chance he too was of the council), with his throat pressed more forcefully, as if by the art of the exercise, by a knot of the arms, he expired.

¹⁰ Quo cognito senatus, qui ob festa Ianuariorum frequens primo luci convenerat, simul plebes hostem deorum atque hominum radendumque nomen sanxere; confestimque praefecto urbi Aulo Helvio Pertinaci imperium defertur.

¹⁰ With this known, the Senate, which on account of the festivals of January had assembled in full numbers at first light, together with the plebs decreed that the enemy of the gods and of men be expunged and that his name be scraped away; and immediately the imperium was conferred upon the Prefect of the City, Aulus Helvius Pertinax.

18 ¹ Hic doctrinae omnis ac moribus antiquissimis, immodice parcus, Curios aequaverat Fabriciosque. ² Eum milites, quis exhausto iam perditoque orbe satis videtur nihil, impulsore Didio foede iugulavere octogesimo imperii die.

18 ¹ This man, of all doctrine and of the most ancient morals, immoderately sparing, had equaled the Curii and the Fabricii. ² Him the soldiers— to whom, with the world exhausted and already ruined, nothing seems enough— with Didius as instigator, foully cut the throat on the 80th day of his rule.

19 ¹ At Didius (an Salvius?) Iulianus fretus praetorianis, quos in societatem promissis magnificentioribus perpulerat, ex praefectura vigilum ad insignia dominatus processit. ² Genus ei pernobile iurisque urbani praestans scientia; quippe qui primus edictum, quod varie inconditeque a praetoribus promebatur, in ordinem composuerit. ³ Hincque satis compertum cohibendae cupidini ingenium ni iuvet, eruditionem imbecillem esse, ⁴ cum praeceptor et asper quidem rectius vivendi in facinus processerit, quod novo supplicio plectendum ediderat.

19 ¹ But Didius (or Salvius?) Julianus, relying on the Praetorians, whom he had driven into partnership by more magnificent promises, advanced from the prefecture of the Watch to the insignia of dominion. ² His stock was very noble, and he was outstanding in the science of urban law; indeed he was the first to bring into order the edict which was being issued variously and without form by the praetors. ³ And from this it is well established that, unless it aids in restraining desire, erudition is feeble, ⁴ since the preceptor—indeed a harsh one—of living more rightly himself advanced into a crime which he had published as to be punished with a new kind of punishment.

Neque cupito tamen potitus diu. Namque eum acceptis illico, quae acciderant, Septimius Severus, qui forte Syriae legatus in extremis terris bellum gerebat, imperator creatus pontem proxime Milvium acie devicit; missique, qui fugientem insequerentur, apud palatium Romae obtruncavere.

Nor, however, did he long possess the coveted prize. For immediately upon receiving news of what had happened, Septimius Severus—who by chance, as legate of Syria, was waging war in the farthest lands—having been created emperor, defeated him in battle at the bridge near the Milvian; and men were sent to pursue him as he fled, and they cut him down at the palace in Rome.

20 ¹ Igitur Septimius, Pertinacis nece, simul flagitiorum odio, dolore atque ira commotior cohortes praetorias statim militia exemit cunctisque partium caesis Helvium senatusconsulto inter Divos refert; Salvii nomen atque eius scripta factave aboleri iubet; quod unum effici nequivit. ² Tantum gratia doctarum artium valet, ut scriptoribus ne saevi mores quidem ad memoriam officiant. ³ Quin etiam mors huiuscemodi ipsis gloriae, exsecrationi actoribus est, ⁴ cum omnes, praecipueque posteri, sic habent illa ingenia nisi publico latrocinio ac per dementiam opprimi non potuisse.

20 ¹ Therefore Septimius, at the murder of Pertinax and at the same time more stirred by hatred of the flagitious outrages, by grief and by anger, immediately removed the Praetorian cohorts from military service, and, with all the partisans of the factions cut down, by senatorial decree (senatus‑consultum) enrolls Helvius among the Divi; he orders the name of Salvius and his writings or deeds to be abolished; this one thing he could not effect. ² So great is the favor of the learned arts that for writers not even savage morals hinder remembrance. ³ Indeed even a death of this kind is glory for them, and execration for the perpetrators, ⁴ since all, and especially posterity, hold thus: that those talents could not have been suppressed except by public brigandage and through madness.

⁵ Quo bonis omnibus ac mihi fidendum magis, qui rure ortus tenui atque indocto patre in haec tempora vitam praestiti studiis tantis honestiorem. ⁶ Quod equidem gentis nostrae reor, quae fato quodam bonorum parce fecunda, quos eduxerit tamen, quemque ad sua celsos habet. Velut Severum ipsum, quo praeclarior in republica fuit nemo; quem quamquam exacta aetate mortuum iustitio elogioque lugendum sanxere, struentes illum iustum nasci aut emori minime convenisse.

⁵ Hence all good men, and I myself, should trust the more, I who, born in the countryside with a modest and unlearned father, have up to these times maintained a life the more honorable by such great studies. ⁶ Which indeed I reckon to be of our nation, which, by a certain fate, is sparingly fertile in good men; yet those whom it has brought forth, it holds each exalted in his own. For example Severus himself, than whom no one was more illustrious in the commonwealth; whom, although dead at a ripe age, they decreed to be mourned by a suspension of business and by a eulogy, thereby asserting that it least befitted that just man either to be born or to die.

⁷ Scilicet quod corrigendis moribus nimium, postquam ad veterum innocentiam quasi mentium sanitatem pervenerant, clementem habuere. ⁸ Ita honestas, quae principio anxia habetur, ubi contigerit, voluptati luxuriaeque est. Pescennium Nigrum apud Cyzicenos, Clodium Albinum Lugduni victos coegit mori; ⁹ quorum prior Aegyptum dux obtinens bellum moverat spe dominationis, alter Pertinacis auctor occidendi, cum eo metu in Britannos, quam provinciam a Commodo meruerat, transmittere niteretur, in Gallia invaserat imperium.

⁷ To wit, because, for the correcting of morals, they accounted him too clement, after they had come to the innocence of the ancients, as it were to a sanity of minds. ⁸ Thus honesty, which at the beginning is held anxious, once it has been attained, is for voluptuousness and luxury. He compelled Pescennius Niger among the Cyzicenes, Clodius Albinus at Lugdunum, when defeated, to die; ⁹ of whom the former, holding Egypt as a leader, had stirred war in the hope of domination, the latter, the author of killing Pertinax, when, for fear of him, he was striving to cross over to the Britons—the province which he had merited from Commodus—had invaded the imperium in Gaul.

¹⁰ Horum infinita caede crudelior habitus et cognomento Pertinax, quamquam ob vitae parsimoniam similem ipsum magis ascivisse plures putent: nobis mens ad credendum prona acerbitati impositum. ¹¹ Nam cum quidam hostiam, quem tamen, uti bellis civilibus solet, condicio loci ad Albinum detulerat, causa exposita novissime conclusisset: "Quid, quaeso, faceres, si tu esses?" ille respondit: "Ea perferrem, quae tu." ¹² Quo dicto factoque durius nibil bonis: cum sanctique huiuscemodi dissensiones, quamvis studiosius coeptas, fortunae increpent magisque in protegendis quam ad perdendos cives verum corrumpi patiantur. ¹³ At iste delendarum cupidus factionum, quo deinceps mitius ageret, necessitudinem facti ulcisci maluit, ne paulatim spe veniae in labem publicam per coniurationes procederetur, ad quas vitio temporum animos <pronos> intelligebat; neque ego abnuo ea delictorum, quae grassari immodice coeperint, plus paene quam severe excidenda esse.

¹⁰ Because of the endless slaughter of these he was held more cruel and by the cognomen Pertinax, although many think that he himself rather adopted it on account of the parsimony of his life: our mind is prone to believe that it was imposed for acerbity. ¹¹ For when a certain man, a victim, whom however, as is wont in civil wars, the condition of the place had brought over to Albinus, after setting forth his case finally concluded: "What, I pray, would you do, if you were?" he replied: "I would endure the things which you [do]." ¹² Than which word and deed nothing is harsher for good men: since holy dissensions of this sort, although more zealously undertaken, fortune rebukes, and allows the truth to be corrupted more in protecting citizens than in destroying them. ¹³ But he, eager for factions to be deleted, in order that thereafter he might act more mildly, preferred to avenge the necessity of the deed, lest gradually by hope of pardon there should proceed into public ruin through conspiracies, to which by the fault of the times he understood minds <pronos>; nor do I deny that those crimes which have begun to run rampant immoderately must be excised almost more than severely.

¹⁴ Felix ac prudens, armis praecipue adeo ut nullo congressu nisi victor discesserit auxeritque imperium subacto Persarum rege nomine Aggaro. ¹⁵ Neque minus Arabas, simul adortus ut est, in dicionem redegit provinciae modo. ¹⁶ Adiabena quoque, ni terrarum macies despectaretur, in tributarios concessisset.

¹⁴ Fortunate and prudent, especially in arms, to such a degree that from no engagement did he depart except as victor, and he increased the empire with the Persian king, by name Aggarus, subjugated. ¹⁵ Nor less did he, having attacked at once as he did, bring the Arabs into dominion, in the manner of a province. ¹⁶ Adiabene too would have yielded into tributary status, if the meagerness of the lands were not looked down upon.

¹⁷ Ob haec tanta Arabicum, Adiabenicum et Parthici cognomento patres dixere. ¹⁸ His maiora aggressus Britanniam, quoad ea utilis erat, pulsis hostibus muro munivit per transversam insulam ducto utrimque ad finem Oceani. ¹⁹ Quin etiam Tripoli, cuius Lepti oppido oriebatur, bellicosae gentes submotae procul.

¹⁷ On account of these so great [deeds], the Fathers declared him by the cognomen Arabicus, Adiabenicus, and Parthicus. ¹⁸ Undertaking greater things than these, he fortified Britain, insofar as it was useful, with the enemies driven back, by a wall led across the island transversely, carried on both sides to the end of the Ocean. ¹⁹ Nay even in Tripolis, from whose town Leptis he took his origin, warlike nations were removed far away.

²⁰ Quae factu ardua facilius eo patrabantur, quo implacabilis delictis strenuum quemque praemiis extollebat. ²¹ Denique ne parva latrocinia quidem impunita patiebatur, in suos animadvertens magis, quod vitio ducum aut etiam per factionem fieri vir experiens intelligeret. ²² Philosophiae, declamandi, cunctis postremo liberalium deditus studiis; idemque abs se texta ornatu et fide paribus composuit.

²⁰ The things, arduous to do, were more easily accomplished for this reason: because, implacable toward offenses, he would exalt each strenuous man with rewards. ²¹ Finally, he did not allow even small brigandages to go unpunished, inflicting punishment rather upon his own men, because, as an experienced man, he understood that such things happened through the fault of the leaders or even through faction. ²² Devoted to philosophy, to declamation, and, in fine, to all the liberal studies; and he likewise composed writings of his own weaving, with ornament and trustworthiness on a par.

²³ Legum conditor longe aequabilium. Huic tanto domi forisque uxoris probra summam gloriae dempsere, quam adeo famose complexus est, uti cognita libidine ac ream coniuratiollis retentaverit. ²⁴ Quod cum infimo turpe tum potentibus, et illi magis, cui non privati neque singuli aut flagitiosi, verum imperia et exercitus atque ipsa vitia concessere.

²³ A framer of laws most equable by far. To this man so great, at home and abroad, his wife’s disgraces deprived him of the highest glory, whom he embraced so notoriously that, her lust being known and she arraigned for conspiracy, he even attempted to retain her. ²⁴ Which was shameful both to the lowest and to the powerful, and the more to that man, to whom not private men nor individuals or scandalous persons, but empires and armies and even vices themselves had yielded.

²⁵ Nam cum pedibus aeger bellum moraretur idque milites anxie ferrent eiusque filium Bassianuin, qui Caesar una aderat, Augustum fecissent, in tribunal se ferri, adesse omnes, imperatoremque ac tribunos, centuriones et cohortes, quibus auctoribus acciderat, sisti reorum modo iussit. ²⁶ Quo metu cum stratus humi victor tantorum exercitus veniam precaretur: "Sentitisne," inquit, pulsans manu, "caput potius quam pedes imperare?" ²⁷ Neque multo post in Britanniae municipio, cui Eboraci nomen, annis regni duodeviginti morbo exstinctus est. ²⁸ Ortus medie humili, primo litteris, dehinc imbutus foro; quo parum commodante, uti rebus artis solet, dum tentat aut exquirit varia melioraque, conscendit imperium.

²⁵ For when, sick in his feet, he was delaying the war, and the soldiers bore this anxiously, and had made his son Bassianus, who was present as Caesar, Augustus, he ordered himself to be carried into the tribunal, that all be present, and that the emperor too, and the tribunes, centurions, and cohorts, at whose instigation it had happened, be set up in the manner of the accused. ²⁶ Whereupon, by this fear, when the victor over so great an army, prostrate on the ground, begged for pardon: "Do you perceive," he said, striking with his hand, "that the head rather than the feet gives commands?" ²⁷ And not long after, in a municipality of Britain, whose name is Eboracum, he was extinguished by disease, in the 18th year of his reign. ²⁸ Born of middling humble origin, at first to letters, then imbued with the forum; which, affording little convenience, as commonly happens in matters of art, while he tries or inquires after various and better things, he mounted the imperium.

²⁹ Ibi graviora expertus, laborem curas metum et incerta prorsus omnia, quasi testis vitae mortalium: "Cuncta," inquit, "fui; conducit nihil". ³⁰ Funus, quod liberi Geta Bassianusque Romam detulerant, mire celebratum illatumque Marci sepulcro, <quem> adeo percoluerat, ut eius gratia Commodum inter Divos referri suaserit fratrem appellans, Bassianoque Antonini vocabulum addiderit, quod ex illo post multos dubiosque eventus auspicia honorum cepisset patrocinio fisci; ³¹ deinde laborantiblis secundarum initia earumque auctores memoriae sunt.

²⁹ There, having experienced graver things—labor, cares, fear, and absolutely all uncertainties—as though a witness of the life of mortals: “All things,” he said, “I have been; nothing conduces (profits).” ³⁰ The funeral, which his children Geta and Bassianus had borne to Rome, was marvelously celebrated and brought into the sepulchre of Marcus, <whom> he had so highly cherished, that for his sake he advised that Commodus be enrolled among the Divi, calling him brother, and he added to Bassianus the vocable “Antoninus,” because from him, after many and doubtful events, he had taken the auspices of honors under the patronage of the fisc; ³¹ thereafter, for those laboring, the beginnings of prosperous things and their authors are matters of memory.

32 At posteri, quasi bellum inter se mandatis accepissent, confestim secessere. Ita Geta, cui nomen paterno ab avo erat, cum eius modestiore ingenio frater angeretur, obsessus interiit. ³³ Quae victoria Papiniani exitio foedior facta, ut sane putant memoriae curiosi, quippe quem ferunt illo temporis Bassiani scrinia curavisse monitumque, uti mos est, destinanda Romam quam celerrime componeret, dolore Getae dixisse haudquaquam pari facilitate velari parricidium, qua fieret, iccircoque morte affectum.

32 But the heirs, as if they had received mandates for war between themselves, immediately seceded. Thus Geta, whose name was from his paternal grandfather, while his brother was angered at his more modest disposition, beset, perished. ³³ Which victory was made fouler by the destruction of Papinianus, as indeed the curious of memory think; for they report that at that time he took care of the archives (scrinia) of Bassianus, and, having been warned, as is the custom, to compose as quickly as possible the things destined to be sent to Rome, out of grief for Geta he said that parricide is by no means veiled with an equal facility as it is perpetrated, and on that account he was put to death.

³⁴ Sed haec improbe absurda sunt, cum constet satis praefecturam praetorio gessisse neque incondite illum virum tantam contumeliam imponere potuisse, cui amori ac magisterio erat.

³⁴ But these things are shamelessly absurd, since it stands sufficiently established that he held the praetorian prefecture, nor could that man so crudely have imposed so great a contumely upon one to whose love and tutelage he belonged.

21 ¹ Ceterum Antoninus in cognita munerum specie plebem Romanam adficiens, quod indumenta in talos demissa largiretur, Caracalla dictus, cum pari modo vesti Antoninianas nomen e suo daret. ² Alamannos, gentem populosam ex equo mirifice pugnantem, prope Moenum amnem devicit. Patiens communis tranquillusque; pari fortuna et eodem matrimonio, quo pater.

21 ¹ Moreover Antoninus, in a known kind of gifts benefiting the Roman plebs, because he bestowed garments let down to the ankles, was called Caracalla, while in like manner he gave to the garment the name Antoniniana from his own name. ² He defeated the Alamanni, a populous nation fighting marvelously on horseback, near the river Main. Long-suffering, sociable, and tranquil; with equal fortune and the same marriage as his father.

³ Namque Iuliam novercam, cuius facinora supra memoravi, forma captus coniugem affectavit, cum illa factiosior aspectui adolescentis, praesentiae quasi ignara, semet dedisset intecto corpore, asserentique: "Vellem, si liceret, uti", petulantius multo (quippe quae pudorem velamento exuerat) respondisset: "Libet? plane licet". ⁴ Aegypti sacra per eum deportata Romam atque aucta urbs magno accessu viae novae et ad lavandum absoluta opera pulchri cultus. ⁵ Quibus confectis, cum Syriam circumgrederetur, apud Edessam anno potentiae sexto moritur.

³ For indeed Julia, his stepmother, whose crimes I have recounted above, captivated by her beauty he sought as a wife, since she, more provocative to the gaze of the adolescent, as if unaware of his presence, had presented herself with her body uncovered, and to him asserting, "I would wish, if it were permitted, to make use," she replied much more petulantly (indeed, she had stripped off modesty with her veil): "You desire? Plainly, it is permitted." ⁴ The sacra of Egypt were transported by him to Rome, and the city was augmented by a great accession, the Via Nova and works for bathing completed in handsome cultivation. ⁵ With these completed, while he was going around Syria, at Edessa he died in the 6th year of his power.

⁶ Corporis reliqua luctu publico relata Romam atque inter Antoninos funerata sunt.

⁶ The remnants of the body were carried back to Rome with public mourning and were funeralized among the Antonines.

22 ¹ Dehinc Opilius Macrinus, qui praefecturam praetorio gerebat, imperator eiusdemque filius Diadumenus nomine Caesar a legionibus appellantur. ² Quibus eo quod ingens amissi principis desiderium erat, adolescentem Antoninum vocavere. ³ Horum nihil praeter saevos atque inciviles animos interim reperimus.

22 ¹ Then Opilius Macrinus, who was holding the prefecture of the praetorium, is hailed emperor, and his son Diadumenus, by name, Caesar, by the legions. ² To whom, because there was a huge longing for the lost princeps, they called the youth “Antoninus.” ³ Of these we have found nothing for the present except savage and uncivil dispositions.

⁴ Qua gratia mensibus ferme quattuor ac decem vix retento imperio, per quos creati fuerant, interfecti sunt.

⁴ For this reason, with the imperium scarcely retained for almost fourteen months, they were killed by those by whom they had been created.

23 ¹ Accitusque Marcus Antoninus Bassiano genitus, qui patre mortuo in solis sacerdotium, quem Heliogabalum Syri vocant, tamquam asylum insidiarum metu confugerat, hincque Heliogabalus dictus; translatoque Romam dei simulacro in palatii penetralibus altaria constituit. ² Hoc impurius ne improbae quidem aut petulantes mulieres fuere: quippe orbe toto obscoenissimos perquirebat visendis tractandisve artibus †libidinum ferendarum. ³ Haec cum augerentur in dies ac magis magisque Alexandri, quem comperta Opilii nece Caesarem nobilitas nuncupaverat, amor cumularetur, in castris praetoriis tricesimo regni mense oppressus est.

23 ¹ And Marcus Antoninus, born as Bassianus, having been called in, who, his father having died, had fled, from fear of plots, as to an asylum into the priesthood of the Sun, which the Syrians call Heliogabalus, and from this was called Heliogabalus; and, the image of the god having been transferred to Rome, he set up altars in the inner chambers of the palace. ² In this impurity not even shameless or petulant women were worse: for indeed throughout the whole orb he used to seek out the most obscene things, for seeing and for handling, arts †for the bearing of lusts. ³ As these things were increasing day by day and as love for Alexander, whom, once the murder of Opilius had been discovered, the nobility had named Caesar, was being heaped up more and more, he was crushed in the praetorian camp in the 30th month of his reign.

24 ¹ Statimque Aurelio Alexandro Syriae orto, cui duplex Caesarea et Arce nomen est, militibus quoque annitentibus Augusti potentia delata. ² Qui quamquam adolescens, ingenio supra aevum tamen confestim apparatu magno bellum adversum Xerxem, Persarum regem, movet; quo fuso fugatoque in Galliam maturrime contendit, quae Germanorum direptionibus tentabatur. ³ Ibi tumultuantes legionum plerasque constantissime abiecit; quod in praesens gloriae, mox exitio datum est.

24 ¹ And immediately to Aurelius Alexander, born in Syria, whose birthplace has the double name Caesarea and Arca, the power of the Augustus was conferred, the soldiers also lending their support. ² He, although an adolescent, yet by talent beyond his age, at once with great apparatus set in motion a war against Xerxes, king of the Persians; and when he had been routed and put to flight, he hastened most quickly into Gaul, which was being assailed by the depredations of the Germans. ³ There he most steadfastly cashiered most of the legions that were tumultuating; which was given for present glory, soon for ruin.

⁴ Nam cum tantae severitatis vim milites inhorrescunt (unde etiam Severi cognomentum accesserat), agentem casu cum paucis vico Britanniae, cui vocabulum Sicilia, trucidavere. ⁵ Opus urbi florentissimum celebrio fabricatus est, matrisque cultu, quae nomine Mammaea erat, plus quam pius. ⁶ Adhuc Domitium Ulpianum, quem Heliogabalus praetorianis praefecerat, eodem honore retinens Paulloque inter exordia patriae reddito, iuris auctoribus, quantus erga optimos atque aequi studio esset, edocuit.

⁴ For when the soldiers shuddered at the force of so great severity (whence also the cognomen of Severus had accrued), as he was by chance acting with a few in a village of Britain, by name Sicilia, they butchered him. ⁵ He fabricated for the city a most flourishing, much-celebrated work, and in the honor of his mother, who was by the name Mammaea, he was more than pious. ⁶ Furthermore, retaining Domitius Ulpianus, whom Heliogabalus had set over the Praetorians, in the same honor, and with Paulus restored at the beginnings of his rule, he taught the authorities of law how great he was toward the best men and in zeal for equity.

⁷ Neque ultra annos tredecim imperio functus rempublicam reliquit firmatam undique. ⁸ Quae iam tum a Romulo ad Septimium certatim evolans Bassiani consiliis tamquam in summo constitit. ⁹ Quo ne confestim laberetur, Alexandri fuit.

⁷ And, not having held the imperial power beyond thirteen years, he left the republic strengthened on every side. ⁸ Which already then, racing in rivalry from Romulus to Septimius, by the counsels of Bassianus stood as if at the summit. ⁹ That it might not immediately lapse from that was Alexander’s doing.

Abhinc dum dominandi suis quam subigendi externos cupientiores sunt atque inter se armantur magis, Romanum statum quasi abrupto praecipitavere, immissique in imperium promiscue boni malique, nobiles atque ignobiles, ac barbariae multi. ¹⁰ Quippe ubi passim confusaque omnia neque suo feruntur modo, quique fas putant, uti per turbam, rapere aliena officia, quae regere nequeunt, et scientiam bonarum artium foede corrumpunt. ¹¹ Ita fortunae vis licentiam nacta perniciosa libidine mortales agit; quae diu quidem virtute uti muro prohibita, postcquam paene omnes flagitiis subacti sunt, etiam infimis genere institutoque publica permisit.

From then on, while they are more desirous of dominating their own than of subjugating outsiders, and arm themselves more against one another, they have hurled the Roman state headlong as if over a precipice, and into the imperium there have been let in promiscuously the good and the bad, nobles and ignobles, and many of barbarian stock. ¹⁰ For indeed, when everywhere all things are in confusion and are not borne in their proper mode, and there are those who think it right, as in a crowd, to snatch alien offices which they cannot govern, they foully corrupt the science of the good arts. ¹¹ Thus the force of Fortune, having gotten license, drives mortals with a pernicious libido; which, long indeed barred by Virtue as by a wall, after almost all were subdued by flagitious deeds, has even been permitted to the lowest in birth and by public institution.

25 ¹ Namque Gaius Iulius Maximinus, praesidens Trebellicae, primus e militaribus, litterarum fere rudis potentiam cepit suffragiis legionum. ² Quod tamen etiam patres, dum periculosum existimant inermes armato resistere, approbaverunt; filiusque eius pari nomine Gaius Iulius Maximinus Caesar factus est.

25 ¹ For Gaius Julius Maximinus, governing Trebellica, the first from the military ranks, almost unlettered, seized power by the suffrages of the legions. ² Which, however, even the Fathers approved, while they deemed it dangerous for the unarmed to resist an armed man; and his son with the same name, Gaius Julius Maximinus, was made Caesar.

26 ¹ Quis biennium summae potitis, haud incommode proelio gesto contra Germanos, repente Antonius Gordianus Africae proconsul ab exercitu princeps apud Thydri oppidum absens fit. ² Quo ut accitus pervenit, tamquam ea re creatus foret, seditione excipitur; qua lenita facile Carthaginem petit. ³ Ibi cum avertendis prodigiis, quorum metu haud inaniter angebatur, rem divinam solitis ageret, repente hostia partum edidit.

26 ¹ After they had held the supreme power for a biennium, with a battle conducted not incommodiously against the Germans, suddenly Antonius Gordianus, proconsul of Africa, is made emperor by the army, in his absence, at the town of Thydrus. ² When, having been summoned, he arrived there, he is received with a sedition, as though he had been created by that act; this soothed, he easily makes for Carthage. ³ There, when he was performing the customary divine rite for averting prodigies—by the fear of which he was not vainly afflicted—suddenly the sacrificial victim brought forth a birth.

⁴ Id haruspices atque ipse maxime (nam huius scientiae usu immodice prudens erat) ita accepere illum quidem destinatum neci, verum liberis pariturum imperium; progressique coniectu longius liberi quoque exitum denuntiavere, mitem atque innoxium praefantes fore ut illud pecus, nec diuturnum tamen subiectumque insidiis. ⁵ Interim Romae comperto Gordiani interitu hortante Domitio urbi praefectus reliquique iudices vulgo caeduntur per praetorias cohortes. ⁶ Quippe Gordianus, postquam delatum sibi imperium cognovit, praemia amplum in modum ostentans Romam legatos ac litteras destinaverat; quibus necato eo frustratos se milites angebantur, genus hominum pecuniae cupidius fidumque ac bonum solo quaestu.

⁴ The haruspices and he himself especially (for by use of this science he was immoderately prudent) took it thus: that he indeed was destined for death, but that he would bear forth the imperium for his children; and, proceeding further in conjecture, they also declared the outcome for the children, proclaiming beforehand that they too would be mild and harmless like that beast, yet not long-lasting and subjected to plots. ⁵ Meanwhile at Rome, when the death of Gordian was learned, at the urging of Domitius the urban prefect the rest of the judges are slaughtered wholesale by the praetorian cohorts. ⁶ For indeed Gordian, after he learned that the imperium had been offered to him, displaying rewards on a grand scale, had sent legates and letters to Rome; by which, with him slain, the soldiers were vexed to find themselves defrauded, a genus of men more covetous of money, and faithful and good only for gain.

⁷ At senatus metuens, ne nullis rectoribus specie captae urbis atrociora acciderent, primo potestatum vices, mox conscriptis iunioribus Clodium Pupienum Caecilium Balbinum Caesares constituit.

⁷ But the senate, fearing that, with no rulers, under the semblance of a captured city, more atrocious things might occur, at first arranged the alternation of the magistracies, and soon, the younger senators having been enrolled, appointed Clodius Pupienus and Caecilius Balbinus as Caesars.

27 ¹ Iisdemque per Africam diebus milites Gordianum, Gordiani filium, qui forte contubemio patris praetextatus ac deinceps praefectus praetorio intererat, Augustum creavere; neque sane factum nobilitas aspernata. ² Denique accito eo inter implana urbis atque ipso sinu praetoriae manus acie deletae per gladiatorum familias tironumque exercitum. ³ Dum haec Romae geruntur, Iulii Maximini, quos forte ea tempestate Thracia retinebat, acceptis quae evenerant, Italiam propere petunt.

27 ¹ And in those same days throughout Africa the soldiers created Gordian, the son of Gordian, who by chance was present in his father’s contubernium, clad in the praetexta and thereafter in attendance as praetorian prefect, as Augustus; nor indeed did the nobility spurn the deed. ² Finally, when he was summoned, between the level places of the city and in the very bosom of it, the praetorian band was annihilated in battle by the households of gladiators and an army of raw recruits. ³ While these things are being transacted at Rome, the Julian forces of Maximinus, whom at that time Thrace happened to be detaining, upon learning what had occurred, hasten toward Italy.

⁴ Eos Pupienus Aquileiae obsidione confecit, postquam proelio victos reliqui paulatim deseruerant. ⁵ Horum imperio ad biennium per huinscemodi moras annus quaesitus. ⁶ Neque multo post tumultu militarium Clodio Caecilioque Romae intra Palatium caesis Gordianus solus regnum obtinuit.

⁴ Pupienus finished them off at Aquileia by siege, after the rest had little by little deserted those defeated in battle. ⁵ Under their rule, by delays of this sort, a year was gained toward a biennium. ⁶ And not long after, through a tumult of the soldiery, with Clodius and Caecilius slain at Rome within the Palatine, Gordian alone obtained the rule.

⁷ Eoque anno lustri certamine, quod Nero Romam induxerat, aucto firmatoque in Persas profectus est, cum prius Iani aedes, quas Marcus clauserat, patentes more veterum fecisset. ⁸ Ibi gesto insigniter bello Marci Philippi praefecti praetorio insidiis periit sexennio imperii.

⁷ And in that year, with the quinquennial contest which Nero had introduced into Rome increased and confirmed, he set out against the Persians, after first having made the temple of Janus, which Marcus had closed, stand open according to the custom of the ancients. ⁸ There, with the war conducted notably, he perished by the plots of Marcus Philippus, prefect of the praetorium, in the 6th year of his rule.

28 ¹ Igitur Marcus Iulius Philippus Arabs Thraconites, snœpto in consortium Philippe filio, rebus ad Orientem compositis conditoque apud Arabiam Philippopoli oppido Romam venere; exstructoque trans Tiberim lacu, quod eam partem aquae penuria fatigabat, annum urbis millesimum ludis omnium generum celebrant. ² Et quoniam nomen admonuit, mea quoque aetate post mille centesimus consule Philippo excessit nullis, ut solet, sollemnibus frequentatus: adeo in dies cura minima Romanae urbis. ³ Quod equidem denuntiatum ferunt illo tempore prodigiis portentisque; ex quis unum memorare brevi libet.

28 ¹ Therefore Marcus Julius Philippus, an Arab, a Trachonite, having taken his son Philip into partnership, with affairs in the East set in order and with a town named Philippopolis founded in Arabia, came to Rome; and, a reservoir having been constructed across the Tiber—because that part was wearied by a scarcity of water—they celebrate the thousandth year of the city with games of every kind. ² And since the name reminded me, in my own lifetime also the hundredth year after the thousandth, with Philip as consul, passed away attended by no solemnities, as is customary: so minimal from day to day is the care for the city of Rome. ³ Which indeed they say was forewarned at that time by prodigies and portents; of which one it pleases me briefly to recount.

⁴ Nam cum pontificum lege hostiae mactarentur, suis utero maris feminarum genitalia apparuere. ⁵ Id haruspices solutionem posterorum portendere vitiaque fore potiora interpretati. ⁶ Quod frustratum iri aestimans imperator Philippus, tum quia forte praeteriens filii similem pro meritorio ephebum conspexerat, usum virilis scorti removendum honestissime consultavit.

⁴ For when, by the pontiffs’ law, the victims were being slaughtered, the male genitals appeared in the womb of sows. ⁵ The haruspices interpreted that this portended the dissolution of posterity and that vices would be the more potent. ⁶ Estimating that this could be foiled, the emperor Philip—then because, as he was by chance passing by, he had caught sight of a youth like his son serving for pay as an ephebe—most honorably resolved that the use of a male prostitute should be removed.

⁷ Verumtamen manet: quippe condicione loci mutata peioribus flagitiis agitatur, dum avidius periculosa quibusque prohibentur mortales petunt. ⁸ Huc accedit, quod longe aliud Etruscorum artes cecinerant, quae bonis parte plurima iacentibus mollissimum quemque beatum fore asserebant. Eos ego ignorasse verum plane puto.

⁷ Nevertheless it remains: for, with the condition of the place changed, it is driven by worse flagitious deeds, while mortals more greedily seek dangerous things the more they are forbidden to each. ⁸ To this is added that the arts of the Etruscans had chanted something far different, which, with the good for the greatest part lying low, were asserting that the softest sort would be blessed. I for my part plainly think that they were ignorant of the truth.

⁹ Etenim quamvis rerum omnium prospere successu, pudore amisso tamen fortunatus esse quis potest, cum eodem retento cetera tolerabilia sint. ¹⁰ His actis filio urbi relicto ipse quamquam debili per aetatem corpore adversum Decium profectus Veronae cadit pulso amissoque exercitu. ¹¹ Quis Romae compertis apud castra praetoria filius interficitur.

⁹ Indeed, although there be prosperous success in all things, yet with modesty lost who can be fortunate, since with the same retained the rest are tolerable. ¹⁰ With these things done, his son left in charge of the city, he himself, although with a body debilitated by age, having set out against Decius, falls at Verona, his army routed and lost. ¹¹ With these things discovered at Rome, at the praetorian camp the son is killed.

Annos potentiae quinque egere.

They spent five years in power.

29 ¹ At Decius, Sirmiensium vico ortus, militiae gradu ad imperium conspiraverat, laetiorque hostium nece filium Etruscum nomine Caesarem facit; statimque eo in Illyrios praemisso Romae aliquantum moratur moenium gratia, quae instituit, dedicandorum. ² Et interea ad eum Iotapiani, qui Alexandri tumens stirpe per Syriam tentans nova militum arbitrio occubuerat, ora, uti mos est, inopinato deferuntur, simulque per eos dies Lucio Prisco, qui Macedonas praesidatu regebat, delata dominatio, Gothorum concursu, postquam direptis Thraciae plerisque illo pervenerant. ³ Qua causa Decio quam potuit maturrime Roma digresso Iulius Valens cupientissimo vulgo imperium capit.

29 ¹ But Decius, born in a village of the Sirmians, had by the rank of military service aspired to the imperium, and, more elated at the slaughter of enemies, makes his son, named Etruscus, Caesar; and immediately, with him sent ahead into the Illyrians, he delays somewhat at Rome for the sake of the dedication of the walls which he instituted. ² And meanwhile the heads of Iotapian—who, puffed up with the lineage of Alexander, attempting novelties through Syria, had perished by the soldiers’ adjudication—are conveyed to him unexpectedly, as is the custom, and at the same time in those days dominion is proffered to Lucius Priscus, who was ruling the Macedonians in the presidency, owing to the irruption of the Goths, after, most parts of Thrace having been plundered, they had come there. ³ For which cause, Decius having departed from Rome as early as he could, Julius Valens, the mob being most eager, seizes the imperium.

Verum utrique mox caesi, cum Priscum nobilitas hostem patriae censuisset. ⁴ Decii barbares trans Danubium persectantes Bruti fraude cecidere exacto regni biennio. ⁵ Sed Deciorum mortem plerique illustrem ferunt; namque filium audacius congredientem cecidisse in acie; patrem autem, cum perculsi milites ad solandum imperatorem multa praefarentur, strenue dixisse detrimentum unius militis parum videri sibi.

But both were soon cut down, when the nobility had judged Priscus an enemy of the fatherland. ⁴ The Decii, pursuing the barbarians across the Danube, fell by the treachery of Brutus, their two-year reign completed. ⁵ But most report the death of the Decii as illustrious; for the son, engaging more audaciously, fell in the battle-line; but the father, when the soldiers, dismayed, were uttering many things to console the emperor, is said to have stoutly declared that the loss of a single soldier seemed to him a small matter.

Ita refecto bello, cum impigre decertaret, interisse pari modo.

Thus, with the war renewed, while he was contending energetically, he perished in like manner.

30 ¹ Haec ubi patres comperere, Gallo Hostilianoque Augusta imperia, Volusianum Gallo editum Caesarem decernunt. ² Dein pestilentia oritur; qua atrocius saeviente Hostilianus interiit, Gallo Volusianoque favor quaesitus, quod anxie studioseque tenuissimi cuiusque exsequias curarent.

30 ¹ When the Fathers learned these things, they decree the Augustan powers to Gallus and Hostilianus, and Volusianus, begotten of Gallus, as Caesar. ² Then a pestilence arises; as it raged more fiercely, Hostilianus perished, favor being won for Gallus and Volusianus, because they anxiously and studiously cared for the exequies of each very poor person.

31 ¹ Igitur his Romae morantibus Aemilius Aemilianus summam potestatem corruptis militibus arripuit. ² Ad quem expugnandum profecti Interamnae ab suis caeduntur spe praemii maioris ab Aemilio, cui nullo labore seu detrimento victoria obveniebat, simul quia immodici per luxam lasciviamque officia benevolentiae corruperant. ³ His sane omnibus biennium processit.

31 ¹ Therefore, while these were lingering at Rome, Aemilius Aemilianus snatched the supreme power, the soldiers having been corrupted. ² To storm him, those who had set out from Interamna were cut down by their own men, in hope of a greater reward from Aemilius, to whom victory befell with no toil or detriment, and at the same time because the immoderate, through luxury and lasciviousness, had corrupted the offices of benevolence. ³ In sum, all this extended over two years.

Nam Aemilianus quoque tres menses usus modeste imperio morbo absumptus est, cum proceres primo hostem, dein exstinctis superioribus pro fortuna, uti solet, Augustum appellavissent.

For Aemilianus also, having used the imperial power with moderation for three months, was consumed by disease, when the nobles had at first called him an enemy, then, with his predecessors extinguished, according to fortune, as is wont, they had called him Augustus.

32 ¹ At milites, qui contracti undique apud Raetias ob instans bellum morabantur, Licinio Valeriano imperium deferunt. ² Qui quamquam genere satis claro, tamen, uti mos etiam tum erat, militiam sequebatur. ³ Eius filium Gallienum senatus Caesarem creat, statimque Tiberis adulta aestate diluvii facie innudavit.

32 ¹ But the soldiers, who, drawn together from all sides in Raetia on account of the imminent war, were remaining there, confer the imperium upon Licinius Valerianus. ² He, although of quite illustrious lineage, nevertheless, as was also then the custom, was following military service. ³ His son Gallienus the senate creates Caesar, and immediately the Tiber, with summer full-grown, overflowed with the appearance of a deluge.

⁴ Prudentes perniciosum reipublicae cecinere adolescentis fluxo ingenio, quia Etruria accitus venerat, unde amnis praedictus. Quod equidem confestim evenit. ⁵ Nam cum eius pater bellum per Mesopotamiam anceps diuturnumque instruit, Persarum regis, cui nomen Saper erat, dolo circumventus foede laniatus interiit imperii sexto anno, senecta robustiore.

⁴ The prudent foretold a pernicious thing for the republic from the adolescent’s inconstant disposition, because he had come, having been summoned, from Etruria, whence the aforesaid river. Which indeed came to pass immediately. ⁵ For when his father arranged a double-edged and long-lasting war through Mesopotamia, having been outmaneuvered by the deceit of the king of the Persians, whose name was Saper, he perished, foully mangled, in the sixth year of his imperium, being of a rather robust old age.

33 ¹ Sub idem tempus Licinius Gallienus cum a Gallia Germanos strenue arceret, in Illyricum properans descendit. ² Ibi Ingebum, quem curantem Pannonios comperta Valeriani clade imperandi cupido incesserat, Mursiae devicit moxque Regalianum, qui receptis militibus, quos Mursina labes reliquos fecerat, bellum duplicaverat. ³ His prospere ac supra vota cedentibus more hominum secundis solutior rem Romanam quasi naufragio dedit cum Salonino filio, cui honorem Caesaris contulerat, adeo uti Thraciam Gothi libere pergressi Macedonas Achaeosque et Asiae finitima occuparent, Mesopotamiam Parthi, Orienti latrones seu mulier dominaretur, Alemannorum vis tunc aeque Italiam, Francorum gentes direpta Gallia Hispaniam possiderent vastato ac paene direpto Tarraconensium oppido, nactisque in tempore navigiis pars in usque Africam permearet; et amissa trans Istrum, quae Traianus quaesiverat.

33 ¹ At the same time Licinius Gallienus, while he was vigorously warding off the Germans from Gaul, descended hastening into Illyricum. ² There he defeated at Mursa Ingebus, whom, as he was tending the Pannonians, once Valerian’s disaster was learned, a desire of ruling had seized, and soon after Regalianus, who, after receiving the soldiers whom the Mursian disaster had left surviving, had doubled the war. ³ With these things turning out prosperously and beyond prayers, he, looser as humans are in successes, delivered the Roman commonwealth as if to shipwreck together with his son Saloninus, upon whom he had conferred the honor of Caesar, to such a degree that the Goths, having freely passed through Thrace, occupied the Macedonians and Achaeans and the regions bordering on Asia, the Parthians (occupied) Mesopotamia, bandits or a woman ruled the Orient, the force of the Alemanni then equally (afflicted) Italy, the peoples of the Franks, Gaul having been plundered, possessed Spain, the town of the Tarraconenses having been ravaged and almost utterly sacked, and, ships having been gotten in time, a part penetrated even into Africa; and what lay beyond the Danube, which Trajan had acquired, was lost.

⁴ Ita quasi ventis undique saevientibus parvis maxima ima summis orbe toto miscebantur. ⁵ Simulque Romam pestilentia grassabatur, quae saepe curis gravioribus atque animi desperatione oritur. ⁶ Inter haec ipse popinas ganeasque obiens lenonum ac vinariorum amicitiis haerebat, expositus Saloninae coniugi atque amori flagitioso filiae Attali Germanorum regis, Pipae nomine; ⁷ qua causa etiam civiles motus longe atrociores orti.

⁴ Thus, as if with winds raging on every side, the small with the greatest, the lowest with the highest, were being mixed throughout the whole orb. ⁵ And at the same time a pestilence was raging at Rome, which often arises from more grievous cares and from desperation of mind. ⁶ Meanwhile he himself, frequenting cookshops and debauchery-dens, clung to the friendships of pimps and vintners, exposed to his spouse Salonina and to the disgraceful love of the daughter of Attalus, king of the Germans, by name Pipa; ⁷ for which cause also civil disturbances far more atrocious arose.

⁸ Namque primus omnium Postumus, qui forte barbaris per Galliam praesidebat, imperium ereptum ierat; explosaque Germanorum multitudine Laeliani bello excipitur; quo non minus feliciter fuso suorum tumultu periit, quod flagitantibus Mogontiacorum direptiones, quia Laelianum iuverant, abnuisset. ⁹ Igitur eo occiso Marius, ferri quondam opifex neque etiam tum militiae satis clarus, regnum capit. ¹⁰ Proinde cuncta ad extremum reciderant, uti talibus imperia ac virtutum omnium decus ludibrio essent.

⁸ For Postumus, first of all, who by chance was commanding against the barbarians throughout Gaul, had gone to snatch away the imperial power; and, the multitude of the Germans having been driven off, he is met by the war of Laelianus; with whom routed no less successfully, he perished by the tumult of his own men, because, when they were demanding the plunderings of the Mogontiaci, since they had helped Laelianus, he had refused. ⁹ Therefore, with him slain, Marius, once a craftsman of iron and not even then sufficiently renowned in military service, seizes the rule. ¹⁰ Accordingly, all things had in the end fallen back, so that to such men the empires and the honor of all virtues were for mockery.

¹¹ Hinc denique ioculariter dictam nequaquam mirum videri, si rem Romanam Marius reficere contenderet, quam Marius eiusdem artis auctor stirpisque ac nominis solidavisset. ¹² Hoc iugulato post biduum Victorinus deligitur, belli scientia Postumo par, verum libidine praecipiti; qua cohibita in exordio post biennii imperium constupratis vi plerisque, ubi Attitiani coniugem concupivit facinusque ab ea viro patefactum est, accensis furtim militibus per seditionem Agrippinae occiditur. ¹³ Tantum actuariorum, quorum loco Attitianus habebatur, in exercitu factiones vigent, ut arduum petentibus malitia patraretur: genus hominum, praesertim hac tempestate, nequam venale callidum seditiosum habendi cupidum atque ad patrandas fraudes velandasque quasi ab natura factum, annonae dominans eoque utilia curantibus et fortunis aratorum infestum, prudens in tempore his largiendi, quorum vecordia damnoque opes contraxerit.

¹¹ Hence at last it seemed, jocularly said, by no means a marvel, if Marius should strive to refashion the Roman commonwealth, which a Marius, author of the same art and of the same stock and name, had consolidated. ¹² This man having been throttled, after two days Victorinus is chosen, equal to Postumus in the science of war, but with precipitate libido; which being restrained at the outset, after a two-year imperium, many having been ravished by force, when he coveted the wife of Attitianus and the crime was disclosed by her to her husband, the soldiers being secretly inflamed, he is slain through a sedition at Agrippina. ¹³ So greatly do the factions of the actuarii (pay-clerks), in whose place Attitianus was accounted, flourish in the army, that malice was wrought against those aiming at arduous things: a kind of men—especially in this season—base, venal, crafty, seditious, greedy of having, and as if made by nature for perpetrating and veiling frauds, domineering over the grain-supply and thereby hostile to those who care for what is useful and to the fortunes of plowmen, skilled in bestowing timely largess upon those through whose folly and loss they have amassed wealth.

¹⁴ Interim Victoria amisso Victorino filio, legionibus grandi pecunia comprobantibus Tetricum imperatorem facit, qui familia nobili praesidatu Aquitanos tuebatur, filioque eius Tetrico Caesarea insignia impartiuntur. ¹⁵ At Romae Gallienus pacata omnia ignaris publici mali improbe suadebat, crebro etiam, uti rebus ex voluntate gestis solet, ludos ac festa triumphorum, quo promptius simulata confirmarentur, exercens. ¹⁶ Sed postquam periculum propinquabat, tandem urbe egreditur.

¹⁴ Meanwhile Victoria, with her son Victorinus lost, makes Tetricus emperor, the legions approving with a great sum of money—he, of a noble family, was protecting the Aquitanians by a governorship; and to his son Tetricus the Caesarean insignia are imparted. ¹⁵ But at Rome Gallienus, the public ignorant of the public evil, was impudently urging that all was pacified, frequently also, as is customary when affairs have been carried out according to one’s wish, putting on games and festivals of triumphs, in order that the pretenses might be the more readily confirmed. ¹⁶ But after the danger was approaching, at last he departs from the city.

¹⁷ Namque Aureolus, cum per Raetias legionibus praeesset, excitus, uti mos est, socordia tam ignavi ducis sumpto imperio Romam contendebat. ¹⁸ Eum Gallienus apud pontem, cui ex eo Aureoli nomen est, fusum acie Mediolanum coegit. ¹⁹ Quam urbem dum machinationibus omnis generis oppugnat, ab suis interiit.

¹⁷ For indeed Aureolus, when he was commanding the legions through the Raetias, being stirred, as is the custom, by the sloth of so ignoble a leader, having assumed the imperial power, was hastening to Rome. ¹⁸ Him Gallienus, near a bridge which from him bears the name of Aureolus, routed in pitched battle and drove into Mediolanum. ¹⁹ While he was besieging that city with machinations of every kind, he perished at the hands of his own men.

²⁰ Quippe Aureolus, ubi solvendi obsidii spem inanem videt, ducum Gallieni tribunorumque nomina quasi destinata ab eo ad necem astu composuit litterasque e muro, quam occultissime potuit, abiecit; quae forte a memoratis repertae metum suspicionemque iniecere mandati exitii, verum eas effluxisse incuria ministrorum. ²¹ Qua causa Aureliani consilio, cuius gratia in exercitu atque honos praestabant, simulata proruptione hostium nullis, uti re trepida ac repentina solet, tectum stipatoribus tabernaculo educunt nocte intempesta; teloque traicitur, cuiusnam per tenebras incertum. ²² Ita auctoris necis errore an quia bono publico acciderat, inulta caedes fuit.

²⁰ Indeed, when Aureolus sees the hope of lifting the siege vain, he craftily composed letters with the names of Gallienus’s commanders and tribunes as if marked by him for death, and threw them from the wall as secretly as he could; these, chancing to be found by the aforementioned, inspired fear and the suspicion of a mandate for destruction, but that they had leaked out through the negligence of the attendants. ²¹ For this cause, by the counsel of Aurelian—whose favor in the army and honor were preeminent—on a feigned sally of the enemy, with no bodyguards, as is wont in a panicky and sudden affair, they lead him out from the tent at dead of night; and he is pierced by a weapon, whose it was in the darkness uncertain. ²² Thus, whether by an error about the author of the killing, or because it had happened for the public good, the slaughter went unavenged.

²³ Quamquam eo prolapsi mores sunt, uti suo quam reipublicae magisque potentiae quam gloriae studio plures agant. ²⁴ Hinc quoque rerum vis ac nominum corrupta, dum plerumque potior flagitio, ubi armis superaverit, tyrannidem amotam vocat damno publico oppressos. ²⁵ Quin etiam aliquanti pari libidine in caelestium numerum referuntur aegre exsequiis digni.

²³ Although morals have slipped to such a point that more act for their own [interest] than for the Republic, and with zeal more for power than for glory. ²⁴ Hence too the meaning of things and of names is corrupted, while most often the one stronger through infamy, when he has prevailed by arms, calls “tyranny removed” those oppressed to the public loss. ²⁵ Nay even some, by an equal lust, are entered into the number of the celestials, scarcely worthy of exequies.

²⁶ Quis ni fides gestarum rerum obstitisset, quae neque honestos praemiis memoriae frustrari sinit neque improbis aeternam illustremque famam procedere, nequiquam peteretur virtus, cum verum illud atque unicum decus pessimo cuique gratia tribueretur demptum impie bonis. ²⁷ Denique Gallienum subacti a Claudio patres, quod eius arbitrio imperium cepisset, Divum dixere. ²⁸ Nam cum profluvio sanguinis vulnere tam gravi mortem sibi adesse intelligeret, insignia imperii ad Claudium destinaverat honore tribunatus Ticini retinentem praesidiariam manum.

²⁶ Who, if the credence of deeds done had not stood in the way—which allows neither that the honorable be defrauded of the prizes of memory nor that eternal and illustrious fame advance for the wicked—virtue would be sought in vain, since that true and unique honor would be assigned by favor to each worst man, impiously taken away from the good. ²⁷ Finally, the Fathers, subdued by Claudius, because he had taken the imperium by his judgment, declared Gallienus a Divus. ²⁸ For when, with a flood of blood from so grave a wound, he understood death was at hand for him, he had destined the insignia of the imperium to Claudius, who, with the honor of a tribunate, was holding at Ticinum a garrison force.

²⁹ Quod sane extortum, cum neque Gallieni flagitia, dum urbes erunt, occultari queant, et, quisque pessimus erit, par similisque semper ipsi habebitur. ³⁰ Adeo principes atque optimi mortalium vitae decore quam quaesitis nominibus atque compositis, quantum coniciatur, caelum adeunt seu fama hominum dei celebrantur modo. ³¹ At senatus comperto tali exitio satellites propinquosque per scalas Gemonias praeceps agendos decrevit, patronoque fisci in curiam †perduci effossos oculos pependisse satis constat, cum irruens vulgus pari clamore Terram matrem, deos quoque inferos precaretur, sedes impias uti Gallieno darent.

²⁹ Which indeed was extorted, since neither the disgraces of Gallienus, so long as there will be cities, can be hidden, and whoever will be the worst will always be held equal and similar to him. ³⁰ To such a degree do princes and the best of mortals, by the decor of life rather than by sought-out and composed names, so far as can be conjectured, attain heaven, or are celebrated as gods by the fame of men only. ³¹ But the senate, having learned of such an end, decreed that the satellites and kinsmen be driven headlong down the Gemonian stairs, and it is well established that the patron of the fisc, having been led into the curia, hung with his eyes gouged out, while the rushing crowd with an equal clamor prayed Mother Earth and the infernal gods to grant Gallienus impious seats.

³² Ac ni Claudius confestim recepta Mediolani urbe tamquam postulato exercitus parcendum, qui forte eorum supererant, praecepisset, nobilitas plebesque atrocius grassarentur. ³³ Et patres quidem praeter commune Romani malum orbis stimulabat proprii ordinis contumelia, ³⁴ quia primus ipse metu socordiae suae, ne imperium ad optimos nobilium transferretur, senatum militia vetuit et adire exercitum. Huic novem annorum potentia fuit.

³² And if Claudius, the city of Milan having been recovered at once, had not ordered— as though at the army’s petition— that pardon be shown to those of them who by chance survived, the nobility and the plebs would have rampaged more atrociously. ³³ And indeed the senators, besides the common harm of the Roman world, were goaded by an insult to their own order, ³⁴ because he, the first, from fear and his own sloth, lest the imperium be transferred to the best of the nobles, forbade the senate military service and to approach the army. To him the potency of 9 years belonged.

34 ¹ Sed Claudii imperium milites, quos fere contra ingenium perditae res subigunt recta consulere, ubi afflicta omnia perspexere, avide approbant extolluntque, viri laborum patientis aequique ac prorsus dediti reipublicae, ² quippe ut longo intervallo Deciorum morem renovaverit. ³ Nam cum pellere Gothos cuperet, quos diuturnitas nimis validos ac prope incolas effecerat, proditum ex libris Sibyllinis est primum ordinis amplissimi victoriae vovendum. ⁴ Cumque is, qui esse videbatur, semet obtulisset, sibi potius id muneris competere ostendit, qui revera senatus atque omnium princeps erat.

34 ¹ But the soldiers, whom ruined circumstances almost against their nature compel to take right counsel, when they perceived that all was stricken, eagerly approve and extol the imperium of Claudius—men patient of labors, fair-minded, and altogether devoted to the republic, ² indeed in that, after a long interval, he renewed the custom of the Decii. ³ For when he wished to drive out the Goths, whom long continuance had made too strong and almost natives, it was handed down from the Sibylline Books that the foremost of the most distinguished order must be vowed for victory. ⁴ And when he who seemed to be such had offered himself, he showed that that duty more properly belonged to himself, who in truth was the princeps of the senate and of all.

⁵ Ita nullo exercitus detrimento fusi barbari summotique, postquam imperator vita reipublicae dono dedit. ⁶ Adeo bonis salus civium ac longa sui memoria cariora sunt; quae non gloriae modo, verum etiam ratione quadam posterorum felicitati proficiunt. ⁷ Hoc siquidem Conatantius et Constantinus atque imperatores nostri * * * orisque acceptior militibus praemiorum spe seu lasciviae.

⁵ Thus, with no detriment to the army, the barbarians were routed and driven away, after the emperor gave his life as a gift to the commonwealth. ⁶ So much are the safety of the citizens and a long memory of oneself dearer to good men; which things advance not only glory, but also, by a certain rationale, the felicity of posterity. ⁷ This indeed Constantius and Constantine and our emperors * * * and, with a countenance more acceptable to the soldiers through the hope of rewards or of license.

⁸ Quo aegra asperiorque victoria fuit, dum, uti mos subditis est, studio impune peccandi remissa imperia promptius quam utilia defendant.

⁸ Whereby the victory was ailing and more harsh, while, as is the custom with subjects, out of a zeal for sinning with impunity they defend remiss governments more promptly than useful ones.

35 ¹ Ceterum Aurelianus successit tanto vehementior confestim, quasi belli reliquiae superessent, in Persas progressus est. ² Quis deletis Italiam repetivit, cuius urbes Alamannorum vexationibus affligebantur. ³ Simul Germanis Gallia dimotis Tetrici, de quo supra memoravimus, caesae legiones proditore ipso duce.

35 ¹ Moreover Aurelian succeeded, forthwith so much the more vehement, and, as if the remnants of war still survived, he advanced against the Persians. ² Having annihilated them, he returned to Italy, whose cities were being afflicted by the vexations of the Alamanni. ³ At the same time, with the Germans driven from Gaul, the legions of Tetricus—of whom we have made mention above—were cut down, the very leader being a traitor.

⁴ Namque Tetricus, cum Faustini praesidis dolo corruptis militibus plerumque peteretur, Aureliani per litteras praesidium imploraverat eique adventanti producta ad speciem acie inter pugnam se dedit. ⁵ Ita, uti rectore nullo solet, turbati ordines oppressi sunt, ipse post celsum biennii imperium in triumphum ductus Lucaniae correcturam filioque veniam atque honorem senatorum cooptavit. ⁶ Neque secus intra urbem monetae opifices deleti, qui, cum auctore Felicissimo rationali nummariam notam corrosissent, poenae metu bellum fecerant usque eo grave, uti per Coelium montem congressi septem fere bellatorum milia confecerint.

⁴ For Tetricus, since he was for the most part being attacked through the trick of the governor Faustinus with the soldiers corrupted, had implored by letters protection from Aurelian, and to him as he was arriving, with a battle line drawn out for show, he surrendered in the midst of the fight. ⁵ Thus, as is wont when there is no director, the disordered ranks were crushed; he himself, after the lofty imperium of two years, was led in triumph; he was co-opted to the correctorship of Lucania, and for his son he obtained pardon and the senatorial honor. ⁶ Likewise within the city the workers of the mint were destroyed, who, with Felicissimus the rationalis as instigator, had corroded the monetary mark, and from fear of punishment had made war so grievous that, having joined battle on the Caelian hill, they brought down nearly 7,000 fighting men.

⁷ His tot tantisque prospere gestis fanum Romae Soli magnificum constituit donariis ornans opulentis, ac ne unquam, quae per Gallienum evenerant, acciderent, muris urbem quam validissimis laxiore ambitu circumsaepsit; simulque usus porcinae carnis quo plebi Romanae affatim cederet, prudenter munificeque prospectavit, deletaeque fiscales et quadruplatorum, quae urbem miserabiliter affecerant, calumniae consumptis igni tabulis monumentisque huiuscemodi negotiorum atque ad Graeciae morem decreta abolitione, inter quae avaritiam peculatum provinciarumque praedatores contra morem militarium, quorum e numero erat, immane quantum sectabatur. ⁸ Qua causa ministri scelere, cui secretorum officium crediderat, circumventus apud Coenofrurium interiit, cum ille praedae conscientia delictique scripta callide composita tribunis quasi per gratiam prodidisset, quibus interfici iubebantur; illique eo metu accensi facinus patravere. ⁹ Interea milites amisso principe legatos statim Romam destinant, uti suopte arbitratu patres imperatorem deligerent.

⁷ With so many and so great things having been carried through prosperously, he established at Rome a magnificent shrine to the Sun, adorning it with opulent donaries, and, lest ever the things which had happened under Gallienus should occur, he enclosed the city with the strongest walls, with a broader circuit; and at the same time he prudently and munificently provided for the use of pork, so that it might accrue in sufficiency to the Roman plebs, and the fiscal and quadruplator-informers’ calumnies, which had piteously afflicted the city, were erased, the tablets and records of such business having been consumed by fire, and, after the Greek manner, a decree of abolition having been passed; among which he pursued to an immense degree greed, peculation, and plunderers of the provinces, contrary to the custom of the soldiery, of whose number he was. ⁸ For this cause, hemmed in by the crime of a minister to whom he had entrusted the office of the secrets, he perished at Coenofrurium, since that man, conscious of the booty and having cleverly composed documents of the offense, had betrayed them to the tribunes as if by favor, documents in which they were ordered to be killed; and they, inflamed by that fear, perpetrated the deed. ⁹ Meanwhile the soldiers, their princeps lost, at once send envoys to Rome, that the senators might choose an emperor by their own judgment.

¹⁰ Quibus hoc ipsorum potissimum convenire munus respondentibus rursum legiones ad eos reiciunt. ¹¹ Ita utrimque pudore ac modestia certabatur, rara in hominibus virtute, rebus praesertim huiuscemodi, ac prope ignota militibus. ¹² Tantum ille vir severitate atque incorruptis artibus potuit, ut eius necis <nuntius> auctoribus exitio, pravis metui, †simulata dubiis, optimo cuique desiderio, nemini insolentiae aut ostentationi esset, atque etiam soli quasi Romulo interregni species obvenit, longe vero gloriosior.

¹⁰ When they responded that this duty most especially suited those men themselves, the legions in turn referred it back to them. ¹¹ Thus on both sides there was a contest in pudor and modesty—a virtue rare among men, especially in affairs of this kind, and almost unknown to soldiers. ¹² So much could that man achieve by severity and incorrupt arts, that the report of his killing was—destruction to its authors, a thing to be feared to the depraved, pretenses to the wavering, a yearning to every best man, and to no one an occasion for insolence or ostentation; and even to him alone, as to Romulus, there befell the semblance of an interregnum, yet far more glorious.

¹³ Quod factum praecipue edocuit cuncta in se orbis modo verti nibilque accidere quod rursum naturae vis ferre nequeat aevi spatio; ¹⁴ adhuc virtutibus principum res attolli facile vel afflictas, easque firmiores praeceps vitiis dari.

¹³ This deed taught especially that all things in the world in due course turn back upon themselves, and that nothing happens which the force of nature cannot bear again in the space of time; ¹⁴ moreover, that by the virtues of princes affairs are easily raised up even when afflicted, and that these same, though stronger, are given over headlong by vices.

36 ¹ Igitur tandem senatus mense circiter post Aureliani interitum sexto Tacitum e consularibus, mitem sane visum imperatorem creat, cunctis fere laetioribus, quod militari ferocia legendi ius principis proceres recepissent. ² Quae tamen laetitia brevis neque exitu tolerabili fuit. Namque Tacito confestim a ducentesima regni luce Tyanae mortuo, cum tamen prius auctores Aureliani necis maximeque Mucaporem ducem, quod ipsius ictu occiderat, excruciavisset, Florianus, eiusdem frater, nullo senatus seu militum consulto imperium invaserat.

36 ¹ Therefore at last the senate, about the sixth month after Aurelian’s death, created Tacitus from among the consulars, seen as truly mild, as emperor, with almost all the happier, because from military ferocity the nobles had recovered the right of choosing the emperor. ² Yet this joy was brief and not with a tolerable outcome. For Tacitus having at once died at Tyana on the 200th day of his reign, although beforehand he had tortured the authors of Aurelian’s murder and especially the leader Mucapor, because he had killed him by his own blow, Florianus, his brother, with no decree of the senate or of the soldiers, had seized the imperium.

37 ¹ Qui uno mense aut altero vix retentata dominatione apud Tarsum ab suis interficitur, ² postquam Probum in Illyrico factum accepere, ingenti belli scientia exercitandisque varie militibus ac duranda iuventute prope Hannibalem alterum. ³ Namque ut ille oleis Africae pleraque per legiones, quarum otium reipublicae atque ductoribus suspectum rebatur, eodem modo hic Galliam Pannoniasque et Moesorum colles vinetis replevit postea sane quam barbarorum attritae gentes sunt, quae nostris principibus suorum scelere interfectis irruperant, simul caesis Saturnino per Orientem, Agrippinae Bonoso exercitu; nam utrique dominatum tentaverant sumpta, cui duces praeerant, manu. Qua causa receptis omnibus pacatisque dixisse proditur brevi milites frustra fore.

37 ¹ He, with the domination scarcely retained for one month or a second, is slain by his own men at Tarsus, ² after they learned that Probus had been made [emperor] in Illyricum, a man of immense science of war and, in exercising soldiers in varied ways and in hardening the youth, almost a second Hannibal. ³ For as that man filled most of Africa with olives by means of the legions—whose otium was thought suspect to the Republic and to their commanders—so in the same way this man filled Gaul and the Pannonias and the hills of the Moesi with vineyards, after, to be sure, the nations of the barbarians were worn down, who had burst in when our princes were slain by the crime of their own; at the same time, with Saturninus cut down throughout the East, and Bonosus at Agrippina by the army; for both had attempted domination, arms taken up, over the force which the leaders commanded. For which cause, when all had been recovered and pacified, he is reported to have said that shortly soldiers would be in vain.

⁴ Hinc denique magis irritati paulo cis sextum annum apud Sirmium trucidavere, cum ad siccandam lacunis ac fossa urbem ipsi patriam adigerentur, quae palustri solo hiemalibus aquis corrumpitur. ⁵ Abhinc militaris potentia convaluit ac senatui imperium creandique ius principis ereptum ad nostram memoriam, incertum, an ipso cupiente per desidiam an metu seu dissensionum odio. ⁶ Quippe amissa Gallieni edicto refici militia potuit concedentibus modeste legionibus Tacito regnante, neque Florianus temere invasisset, aut iudicio manipularium cuiquam, bono licet, imperium daretur amplissimo ac tanto ordine in castris degente.

⁴ Hence at last, more irritated, a little short of the sixth year, they butchered him at Sirmium, when they were being driven to drain the city—his own native city—by means of ponds and ditches, which is corrupted by palustrine soil and hibernal waters. ⁵ From this point military power grew strong, and, down to our memory, the imperium and the right of creating the princeps were snatched from the senate—uncertain whether with himself desiring it out of sloth, or from fear, or from hatred of dissensions. ⁶ For the military career, lost by the edict of Gallienus, could have been restored, the legions modestly conceding while Tacitus reigned; nor would Florianus have seized power rashly, nor would empire be given, by the judgment of the rank-and-file, to anyone, though worthy, with the Most August and so great an Order residing in the camp.

⁷ Verum dum oblectantur otio simulque divitiis pavent, quarum usum affluentiamque aeternitate maius putant, munivere militaribus et paene barbaris viam in se ac posteros dominandi.

⁷ However, while they amuse themselves with leisure and at the same time quake at riches—whose use and affluence they deem greater than eternity—they paved for the military, and almost for barbarians, the way to dominate themselves and their posterity.

38 ¹ Igitur Carus praefectura pollens praetorii augusto habitu induitur, liberis Caesaribus Carino Numerianoque. ² Et quoniam cognita Probi morte barbarorum quique opportune invaserant, misso ad munimentum Galliae maiore filio Numeriani comitatu in Mesopotamiam pergit protinus, quod ea Persarum quasi sollemni bello subest. ³ Ubi fusis hostibus, dum gloriae inconsulte avidior Thesiphonta urbem Parthiae inclitam transgreditur, fulminis tactu conflagravit.

38 ¹ Therefore Carus, powerful in the praetorian prefecture, is invested with the august garb, with his sons Carinus and Numerian as Caesars. ² And since, the death of Probus being known, the barbarians—who had opportunely invaded—, having sent his elder son to the defense of Gaul, with Numerian in his company he proceeds straightway into Mesopotamia, because that region lies under the Persians in a kind of solemn war. ³ There, the enemies having been routed, while, imprudently more eager for glory, he crosses on to Ctesiphon, the famed city of Parthia, he was consumed by a stroke of lightning.

⁴ Id quidam iure ei accidisse referunt; nam cum oracula docuissent adusque oppidum memoratum perveniri victoria licere, longius delatus poenas luit. ⁵ Proinde arduum fatalia devertere, eoque futuri notio superflua. ⁶ At Numerianus amisso patre simul confectum aestimans bellum, cum exercitum reductaret, Apri praefecti praetorio soceri insidiis exstinguitur.

⁴ Some relate that this befell him justly; for since the oracles had taught that it was permitted to reach, with victory, right up to the town mentioned, being borne farther he paid the penalty. ⁵ Accordingly, it is arduous to divert the fated things, and hence a notion of the future is superfluous. ⁶ But Numerianus, having lost his father and at the same time judging the war finished, while he was leading the army back, is extinguished by the insidious plots of Aper, praetorian prefect, his father-in-law.

⁷ Quis casum detulit adolescentis oculorum dolor. ⁸ Denique diu facinus occultatum, dum clausum lectica cadaver specie aegri, ne vento obtunderetur acies, gestabatur.

⁷ The pain of the adolescent’s eyes disclosed the mishap. ⁸ Finally, the crime was long concealed, while the cadaver, shut in a litter under the semblance of a sick man, was being borne about, lest the keenness of the gaze be blunted by the wind.

39 ¹ Sed postquam odore tabescentium membrorum scelus proditum est, ducum consilio tribunorumque Valerius Diocletianus domesticos regens ob sapientiam deligitur, magnus vir, his moribus tamen: ² quippe qui primus ex auro veste quaesita serici ac purpurae gemmarumque vim plantis concupiverit. ³ Quae quamquam plus quam civilia tumidique et affluentis animi, levia tamen prae ceteris. ⁴ Namque se primus omnium Caligulam post Domitianumque dominum palam dici passus et adorari se appellarique uti deum.

39 ¹ But after the crime was betrayed by the odor of putrescing limbs, by the counsel of the leaders and tribunes Valerius Diocletianus, commanding the domestics (household guards), is chosen on account of his wisdom, a great man, yet with these mores: ² namely, that he was the first, with a garment sought of gold, to covet for the soles the force of silk and purple and of gems. ³ Which things, although more than civil and of a tumid and affluent spirit, were nevertheless light compared with the rest. ⁴ For he, first of all after Caligula and Domitian, allowed himself to be called openly lord, and to be adored and to be named as a god.

⁵ Quis rebus, quantum ingenium est, compertum habeo humillimos quosque, maxime ubi alta accesserint, superbia atque ambitione immodicos esse. ⁶ Hinc Marius patrum memoria, hinc iste nostra communem habitum supergressi, dum animus potentiae expers tamquam inedia refecti insatiabilis est. ⁷ Quo mihi mirum videtur nobilitati plerosque superbiam dare, quae gentis patriciae memor molestiarum, quis agitatur, remedio eminere paululum iuris habet.

⁵ From these things, so far as judgment goes, I have ascertained that the very lowly, especially when they have come into the heights, are immoderate in pride and ambition. ⁶ Hence Marius in our fathers’ memory, hence this man in our own, having overstepped the common condition, while a spirit devoid of power is, as though refreshed from fasting, insatiable. ⁷ Wherefore it seems strange to me that most attribute pride to nobility, which, mindful of the annoyances of the patrician clan by which it is agitated, has some right to stand out as a remedy.

⁸ Verum haec in Valerio obducta ceteris bonis; eoque ipso, quod dominum dici passus, parentem egit; satisque constat prudentem virum edocere voluisse atrocitatem rerum magis quam nominum officere. ⁹ Interim Carinus eorum, quae acciderant, certior spe facilius erumpentes motus sedatum iri Illyricum propere Italiae circuitu petit. ¹⁰ Ibi Iulianum pulsa eius acie obtruncat.

⁸ But these things in Valerius were overcast by his other good qualities; and in that very point, that he allowed himself to be called lord, he acted the parent; and it is well agreed that the prudent man wished to instruct that the atrocity of the realities rather than of the names does harm. ⁹ Meanwhile Carinus, being made certain of the things that had happened, in the hope that uprisings breaking out would more easily be settled, swiftly sought Illyricum by a circuit of Italy. ¹⁰ There, with the other’s battle line routed, he hews down Julianus.

Namque is cum Venetos correctura ageret, Cari morte cognita imperium avens eripere adventanti hosti obviam processerat. ¹¹ At Carinus ubi Moesiam contigit, illico Marcum iuxta Diocletiano congressus, dum victos avide premeret, suorum ictu interiit, quod libidine impatiens militarium multas affectabat, quarum infestiores viri iram tamen doloremque in eventum belli distulerant. ¹² Quo prosperius cedente metu, ne huiuscemodi ingenium magis magisque victoria insolesceret, sese ulti sunt.

For he, when he was managing the correction of the Veneti, with the death of Carus known and eager for imperium, had advanced to meet the approaching enemy to snatch it away. ¹¹ But Carinus, when he reached Moesia, immediately, having joined battle with Marcus alongside Diocletian, while he was greedily pressing the defeated, perished by a blow from his own men, because, impatient in lust, he was making advances to many of the soldiers’ women, whose husbands, more hostile, had nevertheless deferred their wrath and pain to the outcome of the war. ¹² With fear yielding more propitiously, lest a disposition of this kind grow more and more insolent by victory, they took vengeance.

Is finis Caro liberisque; Narbone patria, imperio biennii fuere. ¹³ Igitur Valerius prima ad exercitum contione cum educto gladio solem intuens obtestaretur ignarum cladis Numeriani neque imperii cupientem se fuisse, Aprum proxime astantem ictu transegit; cuius dolo, uti supra docuimus, adolescens bonus facundusque et gener occiderat. ¹⁴ Ceteris venia data retentique hostium fere omnes ac maxime vir insignis nomine Aristobulus praefectus praetorio per officia sua.

Such was the end of Carus and his sons; with Narbo as their homeland, they held the imperial power for two years. ¹³ Therefore Valerius, at his first contio to the army, with sword drawn, gazing upon the sun, adjured that he had been unaware of Numerian’s disaster and not desirous of the imperium; then he ran Aper, who was standing nearest, through with a stroke—by whose deceit, as we have shown above, the good and eloquent young man, his son-in-law, had perished. ¹⁴ Pardon was granted to the rest, and almost all of the enemies were retained, and most notably a distinguished man named Aristobulus, the praetorian prefect, for his services.

¹⁵ Quae res post memoriam humani nova atque inopinabilis fuit civili bello fortunis fama dignitate spoliatum neminem, cum pie admodum mansueteque geri laetemur exilio proscriptioni atque etiam suppliciis et caedibus modum fieri. ¹⁶ Quid ea memorem ascivisse consortio multos externosque tuendi prolatandive gratia iuris Romani? ¹⁷ Namque ubi comperit Carini discessu Helianum Amandumque per Galliam excita manu agrestium ac latronum, quos Bagaudas incolae vocant, populatis late agris plerasque urbium tentare, Maximianum statim fidum amicitia quamquam semiagrestem, militiae tamen atque ingenio bonum imperatorem iubet.

¹⁵ Which circumstance, after the memory of humankind, was new and unanticipated: in a civil war no one was despoiled of fortunes, fame, or dignity, while we rejoice that it is being conducted very piously and gently, and that a limit is being set to exile, proscription, and even to punishments and killings. ¹⁶ Why should I mention that he enrolled many, foreigners too, into consortship for the sake of guarding or extending Roman law? ¹⁷ For when he learned that, upon Carinus’s departure, Helianus and Amandus throughout Gaul, a band of peasants and brigands having been stirred up—whom the inhabitants call Bagaudas—after the fields had been widely ravaged, were attempting a great many of the cities, he immediately bids Maximian—trusty in friendship, although half-rustic, yet good in soldiery and natural talent—to be emperor.

¹⁸ Huic postea cultu numinis Herculio cognomentum accessit, uti Valerio Iovium; unde etiam militaribus auxiliis longe in exercitum praestantibus nomen impositum. ¹⁹ Sed Herculius in Galliam profectus fusis hostibus aut acceptis quieta omnia brevi patraverat. ²⁰ Quo bello Carausius, Menapiae civis, factis promptioribus enituit; eoque eum, simul quia gubernandi (quo officio adolescentiam mercede exercuerat) gnarus habebatur, parandae classi ac propulsandis Germanis maria infestantibus praefecere.

¹⁸ To him later, by the cult of the numen, the cognomen “Herculean” was added, as to Valerius “Jovian”; whence also the name was imposed upon the military auxiliaries that far excelled in the army. ¹⁹ But Herculean Maximian, having set out into Gaul, with the enemies routed or received, in a short time had brought all things to quiet. ²⁰ In which war Carausius, a citizen of Menapia, shone forth by rather forward deeds; and for that reason, and because he was held to be skilled in steering (which office he had plied for pay in his adolescence), they put him in charge of preparing a fleet and of repelling the Germans infesting the seas.

²¹ Hoc elatior, cum barbarum multos opprimeret neque praedae omnia in aerarium referret, Herculii metu, a quo se caedi iussum compererat, Britanniam hausto imperio capessivit. ²² Eodem tempore Orientem Persae, Africam Iulianus ac nationes Quinquegentanae graviter quatiebant. ²³ Adhuc apud Aegypti Alexandriam Achilleus nomine dominationis insignia induerat.

²¹ Elated by this, while he was oppressing many of the barbarians and was not bringing all the booty into the treasury, from fear of Herculius—by whom he had learned that he had been ordered to be put to death—he took possession of Britain, after having seized the imperium. ²² At the same time the Persians were grievously shaking the Orient, and Julianus together with the Quinquegentanian nations were grievously shaking Africa. ²³ Meanwhile at Alexandria of Egypt, a man by the name of Achilleus had assumed the insignia of domination.

²⁴ His de causis Iulium Constantium, Galerium Maximianum, cui cognomen Armentario erat, creatos Caesares in affinitatem vocant. ²⁵ Prior Herculii privignam, alter Diocletiano editam sortiuntur diremptis prioribus coniugiis, ut in Nerone Tiberio ac Iulia filia Augustus quondam fecerat. ²⁶ His sane omnibus Illyricum patria fuit: qui, quamquam humanitatis parum, ruris tamen ac militiae miseriis imbuti satis optimi reipublicae fuere.

²⁴ For these reasons they call into affinity Julius Constantius and Galerius Maximianus—whose cognomen was Armentarius—created as Caesars. ²⁵ The former obtains the stepdaughter of Herculius, the latter one begotten by Diocletian, their prior marriages having been dissolved, as once Augustus had done in the case of Nero, Tiberius, and his daughter Julia. ²⁶ To all these, indeed, Illyricum was the fatherland: who, although of little humanity, yet imbued with the miseries of the countryside and of military service, were quite good for the republic.

²⁷ Quare constat sanctos prudentosque sensu mali promptius fieri, contraque expertes aerumnarum, dum opibus suis cunctos aestimant, minus consulere. ²⁸ Sed horum concordia maxime edocuit virtuti ingenium usumque bonae militiae, quanta his Aureliani Probique instituto fuit paene sat esse. ²⁹ Denique Valerium ut parentem seu dei magni suspiciebant modo; quod quale quantumque sit, ab urbis conditione ad nostram aetatem propinquorum facinoribus patefactum est.

²⁷ Wherefore it is agreed that the upright and prudent, by a sense of evil, become more prompt; and conversely, those unacquainted with hardships, while they estimate all by their own resources, take counsel the less. ²⁸ But the concord of these men especially taught a genius for virtue and the exercise of good soldiery—how great for them, under the institution of Aurelian and of Probus, it was almost sufficient. ²⁹ Finally, they now looked up to Valerius as a parent, or even as a great god; what sort and how great a thing that is has been laid bare, from the founding of the city to our own age, by the crimes of kinsmen.

³⁰ Et quoniam bellorum moles, de qua supra memoravimus, acrius urgebat, quadripartito imperio cuncta, quae trans Alpes Galliae sunt, Constantio commissa, Africa Italiaque Herculio, Illyrici ora adusque Ponti fretum Galerio; cetera Valerius retentavit. ³¹ Hinc denique parti Italiae invectum tributorum ingens malum. Nam cum omnia eadem functione moderateque ageret, quo exercitus atque imperator, qui semper aut maxima parte adorant, ali possent, pensionibus inducta lex nova.

³⁰ And since the mass of wars, about which we have made mention above, was pressing more sharply, with the empire quartered, all things which are beyond the Alps of Gaul were entrusted to Constantius, Africa and Italy to Herculius, the shores of Illyricum up to the strait of the Pontus to Galerius; Valerius retained the rest. ³¹ Hence at last upon a part of Italy there was brought in the huge evil of tributes. For although he managed everything with the same assessment and moderately, in order that the army and the emperor, whom they always adore either wholly or for the most part, might be sustained, by pensions a new law was introduced.

³² Quae sane illorum temporum modestia tolerabilis in perniciem processit his tempestatibus. ³³ Interim Iovio Alexandriam profecto provincia credita Maximiano Caesari, uti relictis finibus in Mesopotamiam progrederetur ad arcendos Persarum impetus. ³⁴ A quis primo graviter vexatus contracto confestim exercitu e veteranis ac tironibus per Armeniam in hostes contendit; quae ferme sola seu facilior vincendi via est.

³² Which, indeed, tolerable in the modesty of those times, has in these tempests advanced into perdition. ³³ Meanwhile, with Jovius having set out to Alexandria, the province was entrusted to Maximian Caesar, so that, leaving the borders, he might advance into Mesopotamia to ward off the assaults of the Persians. ³⁴ By whom at first he was grievously vexed; an army having been promptly assembled from veterans and recruits, through Armenia he pressed against the enemies; which is almost the only, or at any rate the easier, way of conquering.

³⁵ Denique ibidem Narseum regem in dicionem subegit, simul liberos coniugesque et aulam regiam. ³⁶ Adeo victor, ut, ni Valerius, cuius nutu omnia gerebantur, incertum qua causa abnuisset, Romani fasces in provinciam novam ferrentur. ³⁷ Verum pars terrarum tamen nobis utilior quaesita; quae cum acrius reposcuntur, bellum recens susceptum est grave admodum perniciosumque.

³⁵ Finally, in that very place he subjugated King Narseus into his dominion, together with the children and wives and the royal court. ³⁶ So victorious, that, if Valerius—at whose nod all things were conducted—had not refused, for a cause uncertain, the Roman fasces would have been borne into a new province. ³⁷ Yet a portion of lands more useful to us was nonetheless secured; and when these were being demanded back more keenly, a recent war was undertaken, exceedingly grave and pernicious.

³⁸ At in Aegypto Achilleus facili negotio pulsus poenas luit. ³⁹ Per Africam gestae res pari modo, solique Carausio remissum insulae imperium, postquam iussis ac munimento incolarum contra gentes bellicosas opportunior habitus. ⁴⁰ Quem sane sexennio post Allectus nomine dolo circumvenit.

³⁸ But in Egypt Achilleus, driven out with no difficulty, paid the penalties. ³⁹ Throughout Africa affairs were conducted in a like manner, and to Carausius alone the rule of the island was remitted, after he was deemed more opportune both for the commands and as a muniment of the inhabitants against bellicose peoples. ⁴⁰ Whom indeed, six years later, Allectus by name circumvented by guile.

⁴¹ Qui cum eius permissu summae rei praeesset, flagitiorum et ob ea mortis formidine per scelus imperium extorserat. ⁴² Quo usum brevi Constantius Asclepiodoto, qui praetorianis praefectus praeerat, cum parte classis ac legionum praemisso delevit. ⁴³ Et interea caesi Marcomanni Carporumque natio translata omnis in nostrum solum, cuius fere pars iam tum ab Aureliano erat.

⁴¹ He, since with his permission he was presiding over the highest affair of state, out of the dread of disgraces and, on account of them, of death, by crime extorted the imperium. ⁴² Taking advantage of this, shortly Constantius destroyed him, Asclepiodotus—who as praetorian prefect was in command—having been sent ahead with part of the fleet and of the legions. ⁴³ And meanwhile the Marcomanni were cut down, and the nation of the Carpi was transferred whole onto our soil, of which almost a part already then had been so by Aurelian.

⁴⁴ Neque minore studio pacis officia vincta legibus aequissimis ac remoto pestilenti frumentariorum genere, quorum nunc agentes rerum simillimi sunt. ⁴⁵ Qui cum ad explorandum annuntiandumque, ecqui forte in provinciis motus exsisterent, instituti viderentur, compositis nefarie criminationibus, iniecto passim metu, praecipue remotissimo cuique, cuncta foede diripiebant. Simul annona urbis ac stipendiariorum salus anxie solliciteque habita, honestiorumque provectu et e contra suppliciis flagitiosi cuiusque virtutum studia augebantur.

⁴⁴ Nor with lesser zeal were the offices of peace bound by most equitable laws, and the pestilential class of the frumentarii removed, who now are most similar to the agentes rerum. ⁴⁵ Although they seemed to have been instituted for exploring and announcing whether by chance any disturbances might arise in the provinces, with accusations impiously concocted, fear being cast everywhere, especially upon each one most remote, they foully plundered everything. At the same time the grain-supply of the city and the welfare of the stipendary troops were tended with anxious care, and by the promotion of the more honorable and, conversely, by punishments of every disgraceful person, the pursuits of virtues were increased.

Veterrimae religiones castissime curatae, ac mirum in modum novis adhuc cultisque pulchre moenibus Romana culmina et ceterae urbes ornatae, maxime Carthago, Mediolanum, Nicomedia. ⁴⁶ Neque tamen, cum haec agerent, extra vitia fuere. Quippe Herculius libidine tanta agebatur, ut ne ab obsidum corporibus quidem animi labem comprimeret; Valerio parum honesta in amicos fides erat discordiarum sane metu, dum enuntiationibus posse agitari quietem consortii putat.

The most ancient religions were cared for most chastely, and in a wondrous manner, with new and still well-tended walls, the Roman heights and the other cities were beautifully adorned, especially Carthage, Milan, Nicomedia. ⁴⁶ And yet, while these things were being done, they were not outside vices. For Herculius was driven by such lust that he did not restrain the stain of his mind even from the bodies of hostages; for Valerius, through a fear indeed of discords, had a loyalty toward friends that was scarcely honorable, since he thinks that by denunciations the quiet of the partnership can be agitated.

⁴⁷ Hinc etiam quasi truncatae vires urbis imminuto praetoriarum cohortium atque in armis vulgi numero; quo quidem plures volunt imperium posuisse. ⁴⁸ Namque imminentium scrutator, ubi fato intestinas clades et quasi fragorem quendam impendere comperit status Romani, celebrato regni vicesimo anno valentior curam reipublicae abiecit, cum in sententiam Herculium aegerrime traduxieset, cui anno minus potentia fuerat. Et quamquam aliis alia aestimantibus veri gratia corrupta sit, nobis tamen excellenti natura videtur ad communem vitam spreto ambitu descendisse.

⁴⁷ Hence also the city’s forces as if truncated, with the number of the praetorian cohorts and of the populace in arms diminished; on account of which indeed many wish that he had laid down the imperial power. ⁴⁸ For, a scrutinizer of things impending, when he discovered that by fate internal disasters and, as it were, a certain crash were hanging over the Roman State, with the 20th year of the reign celebrated, being the stronger he cast off the care of the republic, when he had with very great difficulty brought Herculius into his opinion, whose power had been by a year less. And although, with different people evaluating different things, the grace of truth may have been corrupted, nevertheless to us he seems, by an excellent nature, to have descended to common life, ambition spurned.

40 ¹ Igitur Constantio atque Armentario his succedentibus Severus Maximinusque Illyricorum indigenae Caesares, prior Italiam posteriorque, in quae Iovius obtinuerat, destinantur. ² Quod tolerare nequiens Constantinus, cuius iam tum a puero ingens potensque animus ardore imperitandi agitabatur, fugae commento, cum ad frustrandos insequentes publica iumenta, quaqua iter egerat, interficeret, in Britanniam pervenit; nam is a Galerio religionis specie ad vicem obsidis tenebatur. ³ Et forte iisdem diebus ibidem Constantium patrem vel parentem vitae ultima urgebant.

40 ¹ Therefore, with Constantius and Armentarius succeeding to these, Severus and Maximinus, natives of the Illyrians, are appointed as Caesars, the former to Italy and the latter to those regions which Jovius had held. ² Unable to endure this, Constantine—whose mind, already from boyhood vast and powerful, was stirred by the ardor of commanding—by a contrivance of flight, since to frustrate his pursuers he was killing the public beasts of burden wherever he had taken a route, arrived in Britain; for he was held by Galerius, under a show of “religion” (obligation), in the stead of a hostage. ³ And by chance in those same days, in that same place, the last things of life were pressing upon Constantius, his father or kinsman.

⁴ Quo mortuo cunctis qui aderant, annitentibus imperium capit. ⁵ Interim Romae vulgus turmaeque praetoriae Maxentium retractante diu patre Herculio imperatorem confirmant. ⁶ Quod ubi Armentarius accepit, Severum Caesarem, qui casu ad urbem erat, arma in hostem ferre propere iubet.

⁴ Upon his death, with all who were present pressing for it, he seizes the imperial power. ⁵ Meanwhile at Rome the populace and the praetorian squadrons, with his father Herculius long reconsidering, confirm Maxentius as emperor. ⁶ When Armentarius received this, he promptly orders Severus Caesar, who by chance was at the City, to carry arms against the enemy.

⁷ Is circum muros cum ageret, desertus a suis, quos praemiorum illecebris Maxentius traduxerat, fugiens obsessusque Ravennae obiit. ⁸ Hoc acrior Galerius ascito in consilium Iovio Licinium vetere cognitum amicitia Augustum creat; eoque ad munimentum Illyrici ac Thraciae relicto Romam contendit. ⁹ Ibi cum obsidione distineretur, militibus eadem, qua superiores, via attentatis, metu ne desereretur, Italia decessit; pauloque post vulnere pestilenti consumptus est, cum agrum satis reipublicae commodantem caesis immanibus silvis atque emisso in Danubium lacu Pelsone apud Pannonios fecisset.

⁷ While he was operating around the walls, deserted by his own men—whom Maxentius had led astray by the allurements of rewards—fleeing and besieged at Ravenna, he died. ⁸ All the keener because of this, Galerius, Jovius having been called into council, creates Licinius—known from old by friendship—Augustus; and, with him left as a bulwark for Illyricum and Thrace, he hastened to Rome. ⁹ There, when he was held fast by the siege, with the soldiers tampered with by the same method as the earlier ones, in fear lest he be deserted, he departed from Italy; and a little later he was consumed by a pestilential wound, after he had made land quite serviceable to the commonwealth among the Pannonians, with immense forests cut down and Lake Pelso let out into the Danube.

¹⁰ Cuius gratia provinciam uxoris nomine Valeriam appellavit. ¹¹ Huic quinquennii imperium, Constantio annuum fuit, cum sane uterque potentiam Caesarum annos tredecim gessissent. ¹² Adeo miri naturae beneficiia, ut ea si a doctis pectoribus proficiscerentur neque insulsitate offenderent, haud dubie praecipua haberentur.

¹⁰ For her sake he named the province Valeria after his wife. ¹¹ To him there was a quinquennial imperium; to Constantius, an annual one, since indeed each had borne the power of the Caesars for 13 years. ¹² So wondrous were the benefactions to nature, that, if these proceeded from learned minds and did not offend by insipidity, they would without doubt be held as preeminent.

¹³ Quare compertum est eruditionem elegantiam comitatem praesertim principibus necessarias esse, cum sine his naturae bona quasi incompta aut etiam horrida despectui sint, contraque ea Persarum regi Cyro aeternam gloriam paraverint. ¹⁴ At memoria mea Constantinum, quamquam ceteris promptum virtutibus, adusque astra votis omnium subvexere. ¹⁵ Qui profecto si munificentiae atque ambitioni modum hisque artibus statuisset, quis praecipue adulta ingenia gloriae studio progressa longius in contrarium labuntur, haud multum abesset deo.

¹³ Wherefore it has been ascertained that erudition, elegance, and comity are especially necessary for princes, since without these the goods of nature, as if unadorned or even rough, are held in contempt; and contrariwise these prepared eternal glory for Cyrus, the king of the Persians. ¹⁴ But in my own memory the vows of all have borne Constantine, although ready in the other virtues, up to the very stars. ¹⁵ Who indeed, if he had set a limit to munificence and ambition and to these arts—by which especially mature talents, having advanced too far in zeal for glory, slip into the contrary—would not be far from a god.

¹⁶ Is ubi vastari urbem atque Italiam comperit pulsosque seu redemptos exercitus et imperatores duos, composita pace per Gallias Maxentium petit. ¹⁷ Ea tempestate apud Poenos Alexander pro praefecto gerens dominatui stolide incubuerat, cum ipse debili aetate, agrestibus ac Pannonicis parentibus vecordior, milites tumultuarie quaesiti, armorum vix medium haberetur. ¹⁸ Denique eum a tyranno missi paucissimis cohortibus Rufius Volusianus praefectus praetorio ac militares duces levi certamine confecere.

¹⁶ When he learned that the city and Italy were being ravaged, and that the armies and two commanders had been driven back or ransomed, with peace composed through the Gauls he made for Maxentius. ¹⁷ At that time among the Carthaginians, Alexander, serving in place of a prefect, had foolishly pressed toward domination, although he himself was of feeble age, more witless from rustic and Pannonian parents, the soldiers gathered in tumult, and there was scarcely even a middling stock of arms. ¹⁸ Finally, Rufius Volusianus, praetorian prefect, and the military leaders, sent by the tyrant with very few cohorts, finished him off in a light contest.

¹⁹ Quo victo Maxentius Carthaginem, terrarum decus, simul Africae pulchriora vastari diripi incendique iusserat, ferus inhumanusque ac libidine multa tetrior. ²⁰ Adhuc pavidus et imbellis atque in desidiam foede pronus, usque eo, ut flagrante per Italiam belle fusisque apud Veronam suis nihilo segnius solita curaret neque patris exitio moveretur. ²¹ Namque Herculius natura impotentior, simul filii segnitiem metuens inconsulte imperium repetiverat.

¹⁹ With him defeated, Maxentius ordered Carthage, the ornament of the lands, together with the fairer parts of Africa, to be ravaged, plundered, and burned—savage and inhuman, and much the more foul through his libido. ²⁰ Still timorous and unwarlike and shamefully prone to sloth, to such a degree that, with war blazing through Italy and his forces routed at Verona, he attended to his usual pursuits none the less, nor was he moved by the destruction of his father. ²¹ For Herculius, more unbridled by nature, and at the same time fearing his son’s sluggishness, had imprudently sought to resume the rule.

²² Cumque specie officii dolis compositis Constantinum generum tentaret acerbe, iure tandem interierat. ²³ Sed Maxentius atrocior in dies tandem urbe in Saxa rubra milia ferme novem aegerrime progressus, cum caesa acie fugiens semet Romam reciperet, insidiis, quas hosti apud pontem Milvium locaverat, in transgressu Tiberis interceptus est tyrannidis anno sexto. ²⁴ Huius nece incredibile quantum laetitia gaudioque senatus ac plebes exsultaverint; quos in tantum afflictaverat, uti praetorianis caedem vulgi quondam annuerit primusque instituto pessimo munerum specie patres aratoresque pecuniam conferre prodigenti sibi cogeret.

²² And when, under the appearance of duty, with plots composed, he was bitterly attempting his son-in-law Constantine, he at last perished justly. ²³ But Maxentius, more atrocious by the day, finally, having with the greatest difficulty advanced from the city to Saxa Rubra with about nine thousand, when, his battle-line cut down, he was fleeing and recovering himself to Rome, was intercepted, in the crossing of the Tiber, by the ambushes which he had placed for the enemy at the Milvian Bridge, in the 6th year of his tyranny. ²⁴ At his killing it is incredible how greatly with gladness and joy the senate and the plebs exulted; whom he had afflicted to such a degree that he had on one occasion assented to a slaughter of the crowd by the Praetorians, and, as the first by a most pernicious precedent, under the guise of gifts compelled the fathers and plowmen to contribute money for his own prodigality.

²⁵ Quorum odio praetoriae legiones ac subsidia factionibus aptiora quam urbi Romae sublata penitus, simul arma atque usus indumenti militaris. ²⁶ Adhuc cuncta opera, quae magnifice construxerat, urbis fanum atque basilicam Flavii meritis patres sacravere. ²⁷ A quo etiam post Circus maximus excultus mirifice atque ad lavandum institutum opus ceteris haud multo dispar.

²⁵ On account of whose hatred, the praetorian legions and the auxiliaries—more apt for factions than for the city of Rome—were utterly removed, together with arms and the use of military dress. ²⁶ Furthermore, all the works which he had magnificently constructed, the city’s shrine and the basilica, the Fathers consecrated to the merits of Flavius. ²⁷ By whom thereafter the Circus Maximus too was marvelously embellished, and a work instituted for washing, not much different from the others.

²⁸ Statuae locis quam celeberrimis, quarum plures ex auro aut argenteae sunt; tum per Africam sacerdotium decretum Flaviae genti, Cirtaeque oppido, quod obsidione Alexandri conciderat, reposito exornatoque nomen Constantina inditum. ²⁹ Adeo acceptius praestantiusque tyrannorum depulsoribus nihil est, quorum gratia eo demum auctior erit, si modesti atque abstinentes sint. ³⁰ Quippe humanae mentes frustratae boni spe asperius offenduntur, cum mutato rectore flagitioso aerumnarum vis manet.

²⁸ Statues in the most celebrated places, many of which are of gold or silver; then throughout Africa a priesthood was decreed for the Flavian gens, and to the town of Cirta, which had fallen by the siege of Alexander, once restored and adorned, the name Constantina was bestowed. ²⁹ So nothing is more welcome and more preeminent than expellers of tyrants, whose favor will be then all the greater, if they are modest and abstinent. ³⁰ For human minds, frustrated in the hope of good, are more harshly offended, when, though the ruler has been changed, if he be flagitious, the force of hardships remains.

41 ¹ Dum haec in Italia geruntur, Maximinus ad Orientem post biennii augustum imperium fusus fugatusque a Licinio apud Tarsum perit. ² Ita potestas orbis Romani duobus quaesita, qui quamvis per Flavii sororem nuptam Licinio conexi inter se erant, ob diverses mores tamen anxie triennium congruere quivere. ³ Namque illi praeter †admodum magna cetera, huic parsimonia et ea quidem agrestis tantummodo inerat.

41 ¹ While these things are being carried on in Italy, Maximinus in the East, after a two-year reign as Augustus, having been routed and put to flight by Licinius, perished at Tarsus. ² Thus the power over the Roman world was secured for two, who, although connected with each other through the sister of Flavius married to Licinius, yet, on account of different characters, could uneasily agree for three years. ³ For in the former, besides the †exceedingly great other qualities; in the latter there was parsimony, and that indeed merely rustic.

⁴ Denique Constantinus cunctos hostes honore ac fortunis manentibus texit recepitque, eo pius, ut etiam vetus teterrimumque supplicium patibulorum et cruribus suffringendis primus removerit. ⁵ Hinc pro conditore seu deo habitus. Licinio ne insontium quidem ac nobilium philosophorum servili more cruciatus adhibiti modum fecere.

⁴ Finally Constantine sheltered and received all enemies, their honor and fortunes remaining intact, so pious that he was the first to remove even the old and most foul punishment of crossbeams and of breaking the legs. ⁵ Hence he was regarded as a founder or as a god. As for Licinius, not even the tortures inflicted, in servile fashion, upon the innocent and upon noble philosophers imposed any restraint.

⁶ Quo sane variis proeliis pulso, cum eum prorsus opprimere arduum videretur, simul affinitatis gratia refectum consortium ascitique imperio Caesarum communes liberi Crispus Constantinusque Flavio geniti, Licinianus Licinio. ⁷ Quod equidem vix diuturnum neque his, qui assumebantur, felix fore defectu solis foedato iisdem mensibus die patefactum. ⁸ Itaque sexennio post rupta pace apud Thracas Licinius pulsus Chalcedona concessit.

⁶ With him, to be sure, having been driven back in various battles, since it seemed arduous to crush him utterly, at the same time for the sake of affinity the consortium was renewed and, being admitted to the imperium, the common children were made Caesars: Crispus and Constantine, begotten by Flavius, and Licinianus by Licinius. ⁷ Which indeed was revealed—by a defect of the sun, the day defiled in those same months—to be scarcely long-lasting and not fortunate for those who were being assumed. ⁸ And so, six years later, the peace having been broken, among the Thracians Licinius, driven back, withdrew to Chalcedon.

⁹ Ibi ad auxilium sui Martiniano in imperium cooptato una oppressus est. ¹⁰ Eo modo respublica unius arbitrio geri coepit, liberis Caesarum nomina diversa retentantibus: namque ea tempestate imperatori nostro Constantio insigne Caesaris datum. ¹¹ Quorum cum natu grandior, incertum qua causa, patris iudicio occidisset, repente Calocerus magister pecoris camelorum Cyprum insulam specie regni demens capessiverat.

⁹ There, with Martinianus co-opted into the imperium for his assistance, he was overwhelmed along with him. ¹⁰ In that way the republic began to be conducted at the arbitrament of one, the children retaining diverse names of Caesars: for at that time to our emperor Constantius the insignia of Caesar was given. ¹¹ Of whom, when the one elder by birth, for an uncertain cause, had perished by his father’s judgment, suddenly Calocerus, master of the herd of camels, insanely had seized the island of Cyprus under the appearance of a kingship.

¹² Quo excruciato, ut fas erat, servili aut latronum more, condenda urbe formandisque religionibus ingentem animum avocavit, simul novando militiae ordine. ¹³ Et interea Gothorum Sarmatarumque stratae gentes, filiusque cunctorum minor, Constans nomine, Caesar fit. ¹⁴ Cuius gratia reipublicae permixtionem fore ostentorum mira prodidere; quippe ea nocte, quae commissi imperii diem sequebatur, igni continuo caeli facies coliflagravit.

¹² With him tortured, as was right, in a servile or brigands’ fashion, he diverted his immense mind to the founding of a city and the shaping of religions, at the same time to renewing the order of the soldiery. ¹³ And meanwhile the nations of the Goths and Sarmatians were laid low, and the youngest of all his sons, named Constans, becomes Caesar. ¹⁴ On whose account wondrous portents disclosed that there would be a commingling for the commonwealth; for on that night which followed the day on which the empire was entrusted, the face of the sky was aflame with continuous fire.

¹⁵ Abhinc consumpto fere bieimio fratris filium, cui ex patre Dalmatio nomen fait, Caesarem iussit obsistentibus valide militaribus. ¹⁶ Ita anno imperii tricesimo secundoque, cum totum orbem tredecim tenuisset, sexaginta natus atque amplius duo, in Persas tendens, a quis bellum erumpere occeperat, rure proximo Nicomediae — Achyronam vocant — excessit, cum id tetrum sidus regnis, quod crinitum vocant, portendisset. ¹⁷ Funus relatum in urbem sui nominis.

¹⁵ Thereafter, with almost a biennium consumed, he ordered his brother’s son, who had the name Dalmatius from his father, to be Caesar, the soldiers strongly opposing. ¹⁶ Thus, in the thirty-second year of his rule, when he had held the whole world for thirteen, sixty years old and more by two, as he was tending against the Persians, from whom war had begun to erupt, he departed life at a country estate near Nicomedia — they call it Achyrona — when that grim star for kingdoms, which they call the “hairy” one, had portended it. ¹⁷ The funeral was brought back into the city of his own name.

Quod sane populus Romanus aegerrime tulit, quippe cuius armis legibus clementi imperio quasi novatam urbem Romam arbitraretur. ¹⁸ Pons per Danubium ductns; castra castellaque pluribus locis commode posita. ¹⁹ Remotae olei frumentique adventiciae praebitiones, quibus Tripolis ac Nicaea acerbius angebantur.

Which indeed the Roman people bore most painfully, since it supposed that by his arms, laws, and clement rule the city of Rome had been, as it were, renewed. ¹⁸ A bridge was carried across the Danube; camps and forts were advantageously positioned in several places. ¹⁹ The adventitious supplies of oil and grain were removed, by which Tripolis and Nicaea were more bitterly afflicted.

²⁰ Quorum superiores Severi imperio gratantes civi obtulerant, verteratque gratiam muneribus in perniciem posterorum dissimulatio. Alteros Marcus Boionius afflixerat mulcta, quod Hipparchum praestanti ingenio indigenam fuisse ignoravissent. Fiscales molestiae severius pressae, cunctaque divino ritui paria viderentur, ni parum dignis ad publica aditum concessisset.

²⁰ Whose superiors, under the imperium of Severus, gratulating, had offered to a private citizen, and dissimulation had turned the favor of the gifts into the ruin of their posterity. The others Marcus Boionius afflicted with a mulct, because they had been unaware that Hipparchus, a native man of outstanding ingenium, had been such. Fiscal molestations were more severely pressed, and all things would have seemed on a par with the divine rite, if he had not granted access to the public offices to men too little worthy.

²¹ Quae quamquam saepius accidere, tamen in summo ingenio atque optimis reipublicae moribus, quamvis parva vitia, elucent magis eoque notantur facile; quin etiam acrius saepe officiunt, cum ob auctoris decus in virtutes potissimum accipiuntur atque ad imitandum invitamento sunt. ²² Igitur confestim Dalmatius, incertum quo suasore, interficitur; statimque triennio post minimum maximumque fatali bello Constantinus cadit. ²³ Qua Constans victoria tumidior, simul per aetatem cautus parum atque animi vehemens, adhuc ministrorum pravitate exsecrabilis atque praeceps in avaritiam despectumque militarium anno post triumphum decimo Magnentii scelere circumventus est externarum sane gentium compressis motibus.

²¹ Although such things happen rather often, yet in supreme genius and in the best morals of the commonwealth, even very small vices shine out more and are therefore noted easily; nay rather, they often hinder more sharply, since, on account of the author’s honor, they are taken especially as virtues and are an inducement to imitation. ²² Therefore forthwith Dalmatius, uncertain by whose instigation, is slain; and immediately, three years later, Constantine falls in a fated war between the youngest and the eldest. ²³ By which victory Constans, more puffed up, and at the same time by reason of his age too little cautious and vehement in spirit, still execrable because of the depravity of his ministers and headlong into avarice and contempt of the soldiery, in the 10th year after his triumph was entrapped by the crime of Magnentius, with the movements of foreign nations indeed repressed.

²⁴ Quarum obsides pretio quaesitos pueros venustiores quod cultius habuerat, libidine huiuscemodi arsisse pro certo habetur. ²⁵ Quae tamen vitia utinam mansissent! Namque Magnentii, utpote gentis barbarae, diro atrocique ingenio, simul his, quae post accidere, adeo exstincta omnia sunt, ut illud imperium haud iniuria desideraretur; ²⁶ tum quia Vetranio litterarum prorsus expers et ingenio stolidior idcircoque agresti vecordia pessimus, cum per Illyrios peditum magisterio milites curaret, dominationem ortus Moesiae superioris locis squalidioribus improbe occupaverat.

²⁴ Of whom the hostages, boys obtained for a price, the more beautiful—because he had kept them more daintily—it is held for certain that he burned with lust of this kind. ²⁵ Which vices, however, would that they had remained! For with Magnentius—seeing he was of a barbarian race—of dire and atrocious disposition, together with those things which happened afterward, all things were so extinguished that that rule was, not without justice, regretted; ²⁶ then also because Vetranio, utterly devoid of letters and duller in nature, and therefore most depraved by rustic madness, while through Illyricum he cared for the soldiers with the mastership of the infantry, had wickedly seized dominion, being born in the more squalid places of Upper Moesia.

42 ¹ Eum Constantius cis mensem decimum facundiae vi deiectum imperio in privatum otium removit. ² Quae gloria post natum imperium soli processit eloquio clementiaque. ³ Nam cum magna parte utrimque exercitus convenissent, habita ad speciem iudicii contione, quod fere vix aut multo sanguine obtinendum erat, eloquentia patravit.

42 ¹ Constantius, within the tenth month, by the force of eloquence cast him down from imperial power and removed him into private leisure. ² This glory, since the empire was born, accrued to him alone by eloquence and clemency. ³ For when a great part of the armies on both sides had convened, with an assembly held to the semblance of a judgment, he accomplished by eloquence what generally is scarcely to be obtained—or only with much blood.

⁴ Quae res satis edocuit non modo domi, verum militiae quoque dicendi copiam praestare; qua demum vel ardua proclivius eo conficiuntur, si modestia atque integritate superet. ⁵ Quod maxime cognitum e nostro principe; quem tamen, quo minus statim in hostes alios ad Italiam contenderet, hiems aspera clausaeque Alpes tardavere. ⁶ Interim Romae corrupto vulgo, simul Magnentii odio Nepotianus, materna stirpe Flavio propinquus, caeso urbi praefecto armataque gladiatorum manu imperator fit.

⁴ This matter taught sufficiently that not only at home, but in military service too, the copiousness of speaking confers an advantage; by which indeed even arduous things are more readily accomplished, if modesty and integrity prevail. ⁵ Which was most notably learned from our prince; whom, however, the harsh winter and the closed Alps delayed, so that he did not at once contend against other enemies toward Italy. ⁶ Meanwhile at Rome, with the common crowd corrupted, and at the same time through hatred of Magnentius, Nepotianus, by maternal stock kin to Flavius, with the prefect of the city slain and with an armed band of gladiators, becomes emperor.

⁷ Cuius stolidum ingenium adeo plebi Romanae patribusque exitio fuit, uti passim domus fora viae templaque cruore atque cadaveribus opplerentur bustorum modo. ⁸ Neque per eum tantum, verum etiam advolantibus Magnentianis, qui tricesimo die triduo minus hostem perculerant. ⁹ Sed iam antea cum externi motus suspectarentur, Magnentius fratri Decentio Gallias, Constantius Gallo, cuius nomen suo mutaverat, Orientem Caesaribus commiserant.

⁷ Whose stolid disposition was so ruinous to the Roman plebs and the senators that everywhere houses, fora, streets, and temples were crammed with gore and cadavers after the manner of funeral pyres. ⁸ Nor through him only, but also with the Magnentian troops flying in, who had smitten the enemy on the thirtieth day, short by three days. ⁹ But already before, when external commotions were suspected, Magnentius had entrusted the Gauls to his brother Decentius, and Constantius had entrusted the East to Gallus, whose name he had altered to his own, as Caesars.

¹⁰ Ipsi inter se acrioribus proeliis per triennium congressi; ad extremum Constantius fugientem in Galliam persecutus vario ambos supplicio semet adegit interficere. ¹¹ Et interea Iudaeorum seditio, qui Patricium nefarie in regni speciem sustulerant, oppressa. ¹² Neque multo post ob saevitiam atque animum trucem Gallus Augusti iussu interiit.

¹⁰ They themselves engaged with one another in fiercer battles for three years; at the end Constantius, having pursued the one fleeing into Gaul, by varied punishment drove both to kill themselves. ¹¹ And meanwhile the sedition of the Jews, who had nefariously elevated Patricius in the semblance of a kingdom, was suppressed. ¹² Nor much later, on account of his savagery and a truculent spirit, Gallus perished by order of the Augustus.

¹³ Ita longo intervallo annum fere post septuagesimum relata ad unum cura reipublicae. ¹⁴ Quae recens quieta a civili trepidatione Silvano in imperium coacto tentari rursus occeperat. ¹⁵ Is namque Silvanus in Gallia ortus barbaris parentibus ordine militiae, simul a Magnentio ad Constantium transgressu pedestre ad magisterium adolescentior meruerat.

¹³ Thus, after a long interval, almost a year after the seventieth, the care of the commonwealth was brought back to one. ¹⁴ Which, newly quiet from civil trepidation, had begun again to be assailed, Silvanus having been forced into the imperium. ¹⁵ For this Silvanus, born in Gaul of barbarian parents, by the order of military service, and at the same time by his transfer from Magnentius to Constantius, as a rather younger man had earned the mastership of the infantry.

¹⁶ E quo cum altius per metum seu dementiam conscendisset, legionum, a quis praesidium speraverat, tumuitu octavum circa ac vicesimum diem trucidatus est. ¹⁷ Qua causa ne quid apud Gallos natura praecipites novaretur, praesertim Germanis pleraque earum partium populantibus Iulianum Caesarem cognatione acceptum sibi Transalpinis praefecit, isque nationes feras brevi subegit captis famosis regibus. ¹⁸ Quae quamquam vi eius, fortuna principis tamen et consilio accidere.

¹⁶ From this, when he had mounted higher, whether from fear or from dementia, he was, by the legions from whom he had hoped for protection, in a tumult, about the twenty-eighth day, butchered. ¹⁷ For which cause, lest anything be innovated among the Gauls, by nature precipitate, especially with the Germans ravaging most of those parts, he set Julian as Caesar—accepted to himself by kinship—over the Transalpines; and he in short order subdued the wild nations, their famous kings captured. ¹⁸ Which things, although by his force, yet occurred by the fortune of the prince and by his counsel.

¹⁹ Quod adeo praestat, ut Tiberius Galeriusque subiecti aliis egregia pleraque, suo autem ductu atque auspicio minus paria experti sint. ²⁰ At Iulius Constantius, annos tres atque viginti augustum imperium regens, cum externis motibus, modo civilibus exercetur, aegre ab armis abest. ²¹ Quis tyrannide tantorum depulsa sustentatoque interim Persarum impetu genti Sarmatarum magno decore considens apud eos regem dedit.

¹⁹ This so far excels, that Tiberius and Galerius, when subject to others, achieved most excellent things, but under their own leading and auspices experienced results less on a par. ²⁰ But Julius Constantius, ruling the august imperium for 23 years, is exercised with foreign agitations, now with civil ones; he is scarcely away from arms. ²¹ Who, the tyranny of such great men having been driven off and the onrush of the Persians meanwhile sustained, settling with great honor upon the nation of the Sarmatians, gave them a king.

²² Quod Gnaeum Pompeium in Tigrane restituendo vixque paucos maiorum fecisse comperimus. ²³ Placidus clemensque pro negotio, litterarum ad elegantiam prudens atque orandi genere leni iocundoque; laboris patiens ac destinandi sagittas mire promptus; cibi omnis libidinis atque omnium cupidinum victor; cultu genitoris satis pius suique nimis custos; gnarus vita bonorum principum reipublicae quietem regi. ²⁴ Haec tanta tamque inclita tenue studium probandis provinciarum ac militiae rectoribus, simul ministrorum parte maxima absurdi mores, adhuc neglectus boni cuiusque foedavere.

²² A thing which we have found that Gnaeus Pompeius did in restoring Tigranes, and which scarcely a few of the ancients have done. ²³ Placid and clement as the business required, prudent toward the elegance of letters, and in a kind of speaking gentle and pleasant; patient of toil and wonderfully prompt at aiming arrows; a victor over food, over every lust, and over all desires; in reverence of his begetter sufficiently dutiful and overly a guardian of himself; knowing that by the life of good princes the quiet of the commonwealth is ruled. ²⁴ These so great and so renowned qualities—his slight zeal in approving governors of the provinces and of the soldiery, together with the, for the most part, absurd manners of his attendants, and, to this day, neglect of every good man—have stained him.

²⁵ Atque uti verum absolvam brevi: ut imperatore ipso praeclarius, ita apparitorum plerisque magis atrox nihil.

²⁵ And, to conclude the truth briefly: as nothing is more illustrious than the emperor himself, so nothing is more atrocious than most of his attendants.