perverted the resolution of a man who bore men's lives on the tip of his tongue, guiding it in the worst direction, and assailing everything with unseemly confusion, while seeking to accomplish the total ruin of the most opulent houses. 20. For Valens was a man who was especially exposed and open to the approaches of treacherous advisers, being tainted with two vices of a most mischievous character: one, that when he was ashamed of being angry, that very shame only rendered him the more intolerably furious; and secondly, that the stories which, with the easiness of access of a private individual, he heard in secret whispers, he took at once to be true and certain, because his haughty idea of the imperial dignity did not permit him to examine whether they were true or not. 21. The consequence was that, under an appearance of clemency, numbers of innocent men were driven from their homes, and sent into exile: and their property was con fiscated to the public treasury, and then seized by himself for his private uses; so that the owners, after their condemnation, had no means of subsistence but such as they could beg; and were worn out with the distresses of the most miserable poverty. For fear of which that wise old poet Theognis advises a man to rush even into the sea.' 22. And even if any one should grant that these sentences were in some instances right, yet it surely was an odious severity; and from this conduct of his it was remarked that the maxim was sound which says, "that there is no sentence more cruel than that which, while seeming to spare, is still harsh." 23. Therefore all the chief magistrates and the prefect of the prætorium, to whom the conduct of these investiga tions was committed, having been assembled together, the 1 The lines of Theognis are σε Ανδρ ̓ ἀγαθῶν πενίη πάντων δάμνησι μάλιστα Which may be thus translated : "Want crushes a brave man far worse than age, racks were got ready, and the weights, and lead, and scourges, and other engines of torture. And all places resounded with the horrors of the cruel voice of the executioners, and the cries uttered amid the clanking of chains: "Hold him!" "Shut him up!" " Squeeze him!" "Hide him!" and other yells uttered by the ministers of those hateful duties. 24. And since we saw numbers condemned to death after having endured cruel torture, everything being thrown into complete confusion as if in perfect darkness, because the complete recollection of everything which then took place has in some degree escaped me, I will mention briefly what I do remember. 25. Among the first who were summoned before the bench, was Pergamius, who, as we have already mentioned, was betrayed by Palladius, who accused him of having arrived at a foreknowledge of certain events through wicked incantations. As he was a man of exceeding eloquence, and very likely to say dangerous things, and after some very trivial interrogatories had been put to him, seeing that the judges were hesitating what questions to put first and what last, he began himself to harangue them boldly, and shouting out the names with a loud voice and without any cessation, he named several thousand persons as accomplices with himself, demanding that people should be brought forward to be accused of great crimes from every part of the empire, up to the very shores of the great Atlantic. The task that he thus seemed to be putting together for them was too arduous; so they comdemned him to death; and afterwards put whole troops of others to death, till they came to the case of Theodorus, which was regarded, after the manner of the Olympian games, as a crowning of the whole. 26. The same day, among other circumstances, this melancholy event took place, that Salia, who a little while before had been the chief treasurer in Thrace, when he was about to be brought out of his prison to have his cause heard, and was putting on his shoes, as if suddenly overwhelmed by the dread of his impending destruction, died in the hands of his gaolers. 27. So when the court was opened, and when the judges exhibited the decrees of the law, though, in accordance with the desire of the emperor, they moderated the severity of the charges brought before them, one general alarm seized all people. For Valens had now so wholly departed from justice, and had become so accomplished in the inflic tion of injury, that he was like a wild beast in an amphi theatre; and if any one who had been brought before the court escaped, he grew furious beyond all restraint. 28. Presently Patricius and Hilarius were brought before the court, and were ordered to enumerate the whole series of their actions: and as they differed a little at the beginning of their statement, they were both put to the torture, and presently the tripod which they had used was brought in; and they, being reduced now to the greatest extremity, gave a true account of the whole affair from the very beginning. And first Hilarius spoke as follows:-29. "We did construct, most noble judges, under most unhappy auspices, this little unfortunate tripod which you see, in the likeness of that at Delphi, making it of laurel twigs and having consecrated it with imprecations of mysterious verses, and with many decorations and repeated ceremonies, in all proper order, we at last moved it; and the manner in which we moved it as often as we consulted it upon any secret affair, was as follows: 30. "It was placed in the middle of a building, carefully purified on all sides by Arabian perfumes; and a plain round dish was placed upon it, made of different metals. On the outer side of which the four-and-twenty letters of the alphabet were engraved with great skill, being separated from one another by distances measured with great precision. 31. "Then a person clothed in linen garments, and shod with slippers of linen, with a small linen cap on his head, bearing in his hand sprigs of vervain as a plant of good omen. in set verses, propitiated the deity who presides over foreknowledge, and thus took his station by this dish, according to all the rules of the ceremony. Then over the tripod he balanced a ring which he held suspended by a flaxen thread of extreme fineness, and which had also been consecrated with mystic ceremonies. And as this ring touched and bounded off from the different letters which still preserved their distances distinct, he made 1 For the purposes of divination. with these letters, by the order in which he touched them, verses in the heroic metre, corresponding to the questions which we had asked; the verses being also perfect in Tetre and rhythm; like the answers of the Pythia which are so celebrated, or those given by the oracles of the Branchidæ. 66 32. Then, when we asked who should succeed the present emperor, since it was said that it would be a person of universal accomplishments, the ring bounded up, and touched the two syllables EO; and then as it added another letter, some one of the bystanders exclaimed that Theodorus was pointed out by the inevitable decrees of Fate. We asked no further questions concerning the matter: for it seemed quite plain to us that he was the man who was intended." 33. And when he had with this exactness laid the knowledge of this affair open to the eyes of the judges, he added with great benevolence, that Theodorus knew nothing of the matter. When after this they were asked whether the oracles which they had consulted had given them any foreknowledge of their present sufferings, they repeated these well-known verses which clearly pronounce that this employment of investigating those high secrets would cost them their lives. Nevertheless, they added, that the Furies equally threatened the judges themselves, and also the emperor, breathing only slaughter and conflagration against them. It will be enough to quote the three final verses. “ Οὐ μὰν νηποινίγε σὸν ἔσσεται αἷμα, καὶ αὐτοῖς When he had read these verses they were both tortured with great severity, and carried away dead. 34. Afterwards, that the whole workshop where the wickedness had been wrought might be disclosed to the world, a great number of men of rank were brought in, among whom were some of the original promoters of the whole business. And when each, regarding nothing but his own personal safety, sought to turn the destruction which menaced himself in some other quarter, by the permission of the judges, Theodorus began to address them. First of all, he humbled himself with entreaties for pardon; then being compelled to answer more precisely to the charges alleged, he proved that he, after having been informed of the whole affair by Eucarius, was prevented by him from repeating it to the emperor, as he had often attempted to do: since Eucarius affirmed that what did not spring from a lawless desire of reigning, but from some fixed law of inevitable fate, would surely come to pass. 35. Eucarius, when cruelly tortured, confirmed this statement by his own confession. His own letters were employed to convict Theodorus, letters which he had written to Hilarius full of indirect hints, which showed that he had conceived a sure hope of such events from the prophecies of the soothsayers; and was not inclined to delay, but was looking for an opportunity of attaining the object of his desires. 36. After the establishment of these facts, the prisoners were removed; and Eutropius, who at that time was governing Asia with the rank of proconsul, having been involved in the accusation as having been a partisan of theirs, was nevertheless acquitted; being exculpated by Pasiphilus the philosopher, who, though cruelly tortured to make him implicate Eutropius by a wicked lie, could not be moved from his vigorous resolution and fortitude. 37. To that was added the philosopher Simonides, a young man, but the most rigidly virtuous of all men in our time. An information had been laid against him as having been made aware of what was going on by Fi dustius, as he saw that his cause depended, not on its truth, but on the will of one man, avowed that he had known all that was alleged, but had forborne to mention it out of regard for his character for constancy. 38. When all these matters had been minutely inquired into, the emperor, in answer to the question addressed to him by the judges, ordered them all to be condemned and at once executed and it was not without shuddering that the vast populace beheld the mournful spectacle; filling the whole air with lamentations (since they looked on the misery of each individual as threatening the whole |