Roman History Roman History - Book XIX. XII. Many are prosecuted for treason, and condemned.
by Ammianus Marcellinus
But amid these causes of anxiety, as if in accordance with
old-established custom, instead of the signal for civil war, the
trumpet sounded groundless charges of treason, and a secretary, whom we
shall often have to speak of, named Paulus, was sent to inquire into
these charges. He was a man skilful in all the contrivances of cruelty,
making gain and profit of tortures and executions, as a master of
gladiators does of his fatal games.
For as he was firm and resolute in his purpose of
injuring people, he did not abstain even from theft, and invented all
kinds of causes for the destruction of innocent men, while engaged in
this miserable campaign.
A slight and trivial circumstance afforded infinite
material for extending his investigations. There is a town called
Abydum in the most remote corner of the Egyptian Thebais, where an
oracle of the god, known in that region by the name of Besa, had
formerly enjoyed some celebrity for its prophecies, and had sacred
rites performed at it with all the ceremonies anciently in use in the
neighbouring districts.
Some used to go themselves to consult this oracle, some to
send by others documents containing their wishes, and with prayers
couched in explicit language inquired the will of the deities; and the
paper or parchment on which their wants were written, after the answer
had been given, was sometimes left in the temple.
Some of these were spitefully sent to the emperor, and he,
narrow minded as he was, though often deaf to other matters of serious
consequence, had, as the proverb says, a soft place in his ear for this
kind of information; and being of a suspicious and petty temper, became
full of gall and fury; and immediately ordered Paulus to repair with
all speed to the East, giving him authority, as to a chief of great
eminence and experience, to try all the causes as he pleased.
And Modestus also, at that time count of the East, a man
well suited for such a business, was joined with him in this
commission. For Hermogenes of Pontus, at that time prefect of the
praetorium, was passed over as of too gentle a disposition.
Paulus proceeded, as he was ordered, full of deadly
eagerness and rage; inviting all kinds of calumnies, so that numbers
from every part of the empire were brought before him, noble and low
born alike; some of whom were condemned to imprisonment, others to
instant death.
The city which was chosen to witness these fatal scenes was
Scythopolis in Palestine, which for two reasons seemed the most
suitable of all places; first, because it was little frequented and
secondly, because it was halfway between Antioch and Alexandria, from
which city many of those brought before this tribunal came.
One of the first persons accused was Simplicius, the son of
Philip; a man who, after having been prefect and consul, was now
impeached on the ground that he was said to have consulted the oracle
how to obtain the empire. He was sentenced to the torture by the
express command of the emperor, who in these cases never erred on the
side of mercy; but by some special fate he was saved from it, and with
uninjured body was condemned to distant banishment.
The next victim was Parnasius, who had been prefect of
Egypt, a man of simple
manners, but now in danger of being condemned to death, and glad to
escape with exile; because long ago he had been heard to say that when
he left Patrae in Achaia, the place of his birth, with the view of
procuring some high office, he had in a dream seen himself conducted on
his road by several figures in tragic robes.
The next was Andronicus, subsequently celebrated for his
liberal accomplishments and his poetry; he was brought before the court
without having given any real ground for suspicion of any kind, and
defended himself so vigorously that he was acquitted.
There was also Demetrius, surnamed Chytras, a philosopher,
of great age, but still firm in mind and body; he, when charged with
having frequently offered sacrifices in the temple of his oracle, could
not deny it; but affirmed that, for the sake of propitiating the deity,
he had constantly done so from his early youth, and not with any idea
of aiming at any higher fortune by his questions; nor had he known any
one who had aimed at such. And though he was long on the rack he
supported it with great constancy, never varying in his statement, till
at length he was acquitted and allowed to retire to Alexandria, where
he was born.
These and a few others, justice, coming to the aid of
truth, delivered from their imminent dangers.
But as accusations extended more widely, involving numbers without end
in their snares, many perished; some with their bodies mangled on the
rack; others were condemned to death and confiscation of their goods;
while Paulus kept on inventing groundless accusations, as if he had a
store of lies on which to draw, and suggesting various pretences
for injuring people, so that on his nod, it may he said, the safety of
every one in the place depended.
For if any one wore on his neck a charm against the
quartan ague or any other disease, or if by any information laid by his
ill-wishers he was accused of having passed by a sepulchre at
nightfall, and therefore of being a sorcerer, and one who dealt in the
horrors of tombs and the vain mockeries of the shades which haunt them,
he was found guilty and condemned to death.
And the affairs went on as if people had been consulting
Claros, or the oaks at Dodona, or the Delphic oracles of old fame, with
a view to the destruction of the emperor.
Meantime, the crowd of courtiers, inventing every kind of
deceitful flattery, affirmed that he would be free from all common
misfortunes, asserting that his fate had always shone forth with vigour
and power in destroying all who attempted anything injurious to him.
That indeed strict investigation should be made into such
matters, no one in his senses will deny; nor do we question that the
safety of our lawful prince, the champion and defender of the good, and
on whom the safety of all other people depends, ought to be watched
over by the combined zeal of all men; and for the sake of insuring this
more completely, when any treasonable enterprise is discovered, the
Cornelian laws have provided that no rank shall be exempted even from
torture if necessary for the investigation.
But it is not decent to exult unrestrainedly in melancholy
events, lest the subjects should seem to be governed by tyranny, not by
authority. It is better to imitate Cicero, who, when he had it in his
power either to spare or
to strike, preferred, as he tells us himself, to seek occasions for
pardoning rather than for punishing, which is characteristic of a
prudent and wise judge.
At that time a monster, horrible both to see and to
describe, was produced at Daphne, a beautiful and celebrated suburb of
Antioch; namely, an infant with two mouths, two sets of teeth, two
heads, four eyes, and only two very short ears. And such a mis-shapen
offspring was an omen that the republic would become deformed.
Prodigies of this kind are often produced, presaging
events of various kinds; but as they are not now publicly expiated, as
they were among the ancients, they are unheard of and unknown to people
in general.