HumanitiesWeb.org - Roman History Roman History - Book XVI. (VIII. Calumnies are rife in the camp of the Emperor Constantius, and the courtiers are rapacious.) by Ammianus Marcellinus
Roman History Roman History - Book XVI. VIII. Calumnies are rife in the camp of the Emperor Constantius, and the courtiers are rapacious.
by Ammianus Marcellinus
After Marcellus had
been foiled, as I have mentioned, and had returned to Serdica, which was his
native place, many great crimes were perpetrated in the camp of Augustus, under
pretence of upholding the majesty of the emperor.
For if any one
had consulted any cunning soothsayer about the squeak of a mouse, or the
appearance of a weasel, or any other similar portent, or had used any old
woman's chants to assuage any pain—a practice which the authority of medicine
does not always prohibit—such a man was at once informed against, without
being able to conceive by whom, and was brought before a court of law, and at
once condemned to death.
About the
same time an individual named Dames was accused by his wife of certain trifling
acts, of which, whether he was innocent or not is uncertain; but Rufinus was his
enemy, who, as we have mentioned, had given information of some matters which
had been communicated to him by Gaudentius, the emperor's secretary, causing
Africanus, then governing Pannonia with the rank of a consul, to be put to
death, with all his friends. This Rufinus was now, for his devotion to the
interests of the emperor, the chief commander of the praetorian guard.
He, being given
to talking in a boastful manner, after having seduced that easily deluded woman
(the wife of Dames) into an illicit connection with him, allured her into a
perilous fraud, and persuaded her by an accumulation of lies to accuse her
innocent husband of treason, and to invent a story that he had stolen a purple
garment from the sepulchre of Diocletian, and, by the help of some accomplices,
still kept it concealed.
When this story
had been thus devised in a way to cause the destruction of many persons, Rufinus
himself, full of hopes of some advantage, hastened to the camp of the emperor,
to spread his customary calumnies. And when the transaction had been divulged,
Manlius, at that time the commander of the praetorian camp, a man of admirable
integrity, received orders to make a strict inquiry into the charge, having
united to him, as a colleague in the examination, Ursulus, the chief paymaster,
a man likewise of praiseworthy equity and strictness.
There, after the matter
had been rigorously investigated according to the fashion of that period, and
when, after many persons had been put to the torture, nothing was found out, and
the judges were in doubt and perplexity; at length truth, long suppressed, found
a respite, and, under the compulsion of a rigorous examination, the woman
confessed that Rufinus was the author of the whole plot, nor did she even
conceal the fact of her adultery with him. Reference was immediately made to the
law, and as order and justice required, the judges condemned them both to death.
But as soon
as this was known, Constantius became greatly enraged, and lamenting Rufinus as
if the champion of his safety had been destroyed, he sent couriers on horseback
express, with threatening orders to Ursulus, commanding him to return to court.
Ursulus, disregarding the remonstrances of those who advised him to disobey,
hastened fearlessly to the presence; and having entered the emperor's
council-chambers, with undaunted heart and voice related the whole transaction;
and this confident behaviour of his shut the mouths of the flatterers, and
delivered both the prefect and himself from serious danger.
It was at this
time also that an event took place in
Aquitania which was more extensively talked about. A certain cunning person
being invited to a splendid and sumptuous banquet, which are frequent in that
province, having seen a pair of coverlets, with two purple borders of such
width, that by the skill of those who waited they seemed to be but one; and
beholding the table also covered with a similar cloth, he took up one in each
hand, and arranged them so as to resemble the front of a cloak, representing
them as having formed the ornament of the imperial robe; and then searching over
the whole house in order to find the robe which he affirmed must be hidden
there, he thus caused the ruin of a wealthy estate.
With similar
malignity, a certain secretary in Spain, who was likewise invited to a supper,
hearing the servants, while bringing in the evening candles, cry "let us
conquer," affixing a malignant interpretation to that common exclamation,
in like manner ruined a noble family.
These and other
evils increasing more and more, because Constantius, being a man of a very
timorous disposition, was always thinking that blows were being aimed at him,
like the celebrated tyrant of Sicily, Dionysius, who, because of this vice of
his, taught his daughters to shave him, in order that he might not have to put
his face in a stranger's power; and surrounded the small chamber in which he was
accustomed to sleep with a deep ditch, so placed that it could only be entered
by a drawbridge; the loose beams and axles of which when he went to bed he
removed into his own chamber, replacing them when about to go forth at daybreak.
Moreover,
those who had influence in the court promoted the spread of these evils, with
the hope of joining to their own estates the forfeited possessions of those who
should be condemned; and thus becoming rich by the ruin of their neighbours.
For, as clear
evidence has shown, if Constantine was the first to excite the appetites of his
followers, Constantius was the prince who fattened them on the marrow of the
provinces.
For under him
the principal persons of every rank burnt with an insatiable desire of riches,
without any regard for justice or right. And among the ordinary judges, Rufinus,
the chief prefect of the praetorium, was conspicuous for this avarice. And among
the military officers Arbetio, the
master of the horse, and Eusebius, the high chamberlain,
. . . Ard
. . . anus, the quaestor,
and in the city, the two Anicii, whose posterity, treading in the steps of their
fathers, could not be satisfied even with possessions much larger than they
themselves had enjoyed.