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. 3. 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. 4. 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. 5. 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. 6. 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 prætorium, was passed over as of too gentle a disposition. 7. 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. 8. 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. 9. 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. 10. 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 Patræ 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. 11. 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. 12. There was also Demetrius, surnamed Chytras, a philosopher, of great age, but still firm in mind and body; Le, 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. 13. These and a few others. justice, coming to the aid of truth, delivered from their imminent dangers. But as accusations extended more widely, involving numbers without end in their snares, many perished; some with their bodies mangled on the rack; others were condemned to death and confiscation of their goods; while Paulus kept on inventing groundless accusations, as if he had a store of lies on which to draw, and suggesting various pretences P for injuring people, so that on his nod, it may be said, the safety of every one in the place depended. 14. For if any one wore on his neck a charm against the quartan ague or any other disease, or if by any information laid by his ill-wishers he was accused of having 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. 15. And the affairs went on as if people had been consulting Claros, or the oaks at Dodona, or the Delphic oracles of old fame, with a view to the destruction of the emperor. 16. Meantime, the crowd of courtiers, inventing every kind of deceitful flattery, affirmed that he would be free from all common misfortunes, asserting that his fate had always shone forth with vigour and power in destroying all who attempted anything injurious to him. 17. That indeed strict investigation should be made into such matters, no one in his senses will deny; nor do we question that the safety of our lawful prince, the champion and defender of the good, and on whom the safety of all other people depends, ought to be watched over by the combined zeal of all men; and for the sake of insuring this more completely, when any treasonable enterprise is discovered, the Cornelian laws have provided that no rank shall be exempted even from torture if necessary for the investigation. 18. But it is not decent to exult unrestrainedly in melancholy events, lest the subjects should seem to be governed by tyranny, not by authority. It is better to imitate Cicero, who, when he had it in his power either to spare or to strike, preferred, as he tells us himself, to seek occasions for pardoning rather than for punishing, which is characteristic of a prudent and wise judge. 19. At that time a monster, horrible both to see and to describe, was produced at Daphne, a beautiful and celebrated suburb of Antioch; namely, an infant with two mouths, two sets of teeth, two heads, four eyes, and only two very short ears. And such a mis-shapen offspring was an omen that the republic would become deformed. 20. Prodigies of this kind are often produced, presaging events of various kinds; but as they are not now publicly expiated, as they were among the ancients, they are unheard of and unknown to people in general. XIII. § 1. DURING this period the Isaurians, who had been tranquil for some time after the transactions already mentioned, and the attempt to take the city of Seleucia, gradually reviving, as serpents come out of their holes in the warmth of spring, descended from their rocky and pathless jungles, and forming into large troops, harassed their neighbours with predatory incursions; escaping, from their activity as mountaineers, all attempts of the soldiers to take them, and from long use moving easily over rocks and through thickets. 2. So Lauricius was sent among them as governor, with the additional title of count, to reduce them to order by fair means or foul. He was a man of sound civil wisdom, correcting things in general by threats rather than by severity, so that while he governed the province, which he did for some time, nothing happened deserving of particular notice. BOOK XX. ARGUMENT. L Lupicinus is sent as commander-in-chief into Britain with an army to check the incursions of the Picts and Scots.-II. Ursicinus, commander of the infantry, is attacked by calumnies, and dismissed.--III. An eclipse of the sun-A discussion on the two suns, and on the causes of solar and lunar eclipses, and the various changes and shapes of the moon.-IV. The Cæsar Julian, against his will, is saluted as emperor at Paris, where he was wintering, by his Gallican soldiers, whom Constantius had ordered to be taken from him, and sent to the East to act against the Persians. -V. He harangues his soldiers. -VI. Singara is besieged and taken by Sapor: the citizens, with the auxiliary cavalry and two legions in garrison, are carried off to Persia-The town is razed to the ground.--VII. Sapor storms the town of Bezabde, which is defended by three legions; repairs it, and places in it a garrison and magazines; he also attacks the fortress of Victa, without success.-VIII. Julian writes to Constantius to inform him of what had taken place at Paris.-IX. Constantius desires Julian to be content with the title of Cæsar; but the Gallican legions unanimously refuse to allow him to be so.-X. The Emperor Julian unexpectedly attacks a Frank tribe, known as the Attuarii, on the other side of the Rhine; slays some, takes others prisoners, and grants peace to the rest, on their petition.-XI. Constantius attacks Bezabde with his whole force, but fails-A discussion on the rainbow. I. § 1. THESE were the events which took place in Illyricum and in the East. But the next year, that of Constantius's tenth and Julian's third consulship, the affairs of Britain became troubled, in consequence of the incursions of the savage nations of Picts and Scots, who breaking the peace to which they had agreed, were plundering the districts on their borders, and keeping in constant alarm the provinces exhausted by former disasters, Cæsar, who was wintering at Paris, having his mind divided by various cares, feared to go to the aid of his subjects across the channel (as we have related Constans to have done), lest he should leave the Gauls without a governor, while the Allemanni were still full of fierce and warlike inclinations. 2. Therefore, to tranquillize these districts by reason or by force, it was decided to send Lupicinus, who was at that time commander of the forces; a man of talent in war, and especially skilful in all that related to camps, but very haughty, and smelling, as one may say, of the tragic buskin, while parts of his conduct made it a question which predominated-his avarice or his cruelty. 3. Accordingly, an auxiliary force of light-armed troops, Heruli and Batavi, with two legions from Moesia, were in the very depth of winter put under the command of this general, with which he marched to Boulogne, and having procured some vessels and embarked his soldiers on them, he sailed with a fair wind, and reached Richborough on the opposite coast, from which place he proceeded to London, that he might there deliberate on the aspect of affairs, and take immediate measures for his campaign. |