Ammianus Marcellinus, Rerum Gestarum
John C. Rolfe, Ph.D., Litt.D., Ed.

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Constantius Gallus Caesar is summoned by Constantius Augustus and executed.

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There having laid aside the burden of other cares, Constantius began to consider, as his most difficult knot and stumbling-block, how to uproot the Caesar by a mighty effort. And as he deliberated with his closest friends, in secret conferences and by night, by what force or by what devices that might be done before the Caesar's assurance should be more obstinately set upon throwing everything into disorder, it seemed best that Gallus should be summoned by courteous letters, under pretence of very urgent public business, to the end that, being deprived of support, he might be put to death without hindrance. [2] But this view was opposed by the groups of fickle flatterers, among whom was Arbitio, a man keen and eager in plotting treachery, and Eusebius, at that time grand chamberlain, ¹ who was sufficiently inclined to mischief, and it occurred to them to say that, if Caesar left the East, it would be dangerous to leave Ursicinus there, since he would [p. 91] be likely to think of a loftier station, if there were on one to restrain him. [3] And this faction was supported by the other royal eunuchs, whose love of gain at that time was growing beyond mortal limits. These, while performing duties of an intimate nature, by secret whispers supplied fuel for false accusations. They overwhelmed that most gallant man with the weight of a grave suspicion, muttering that his sons, who were now grown up, were beginning to have imperial hopes, being popular because of their youth and their handsome persons and through their knowledge of many kinds of weapons, and bodily activity gained amidst daily army exercises, besides being known to be of sound judgment; that Gallus, while naturally savage, had been incited to deeds of cruelty by persons attached to his person, to the end that, when he had incurred the merited detestation of all classes, the emblems of empire might be transferred to the children of the master of the horse.

[4] When these and similar charges were dinned into the emperor's anxious ears, which were always attentive and open to such gossip, the turmoil of his mind suggesting many plans, he at last chose the following as the best. First, in the most complimentary terms he directed Ursicinus to come to him, under pretence that, because of the urgent condition of affairs at the time, they might consult together and decide what increase of forces was necessary in order to crush the attacks of the Parthian tribes, which were threatening war. [5] And that Ursicinus might not suspect any unfriendly action, in case he should come, Count Prosper was sent to be his substitute until his return. So, when the letter was [p. 93] received and abundant transportation facilities were furnished, we ² hastened at full speed to Mediolanum.

[6] After this the next thing was to summon Caesar and induce him to make equal haste, and in order to remove suspicion, Constantius with many feigned endearments urged his sister, the Caesar's wife, at last to satisfy his longing and visit him. And although she hesitated, through fear of her brother's habitual cruelty, yet she set forth, hoping that, since he was her own brother, she might be able to pacify him. But after she had entered Bithynia, at the station called Caeni Gallicani, she was carried off by a sudden attack of fever. After her death the Caesar, considering that the support on which he thought he could rely had failed him, hesitated in anxious deliberation what to do. [7] For in the midst of his embarrassments and troubles his anxious mind dwelt on this one thought, that Constantius, who measured everything by the standard of his own opinion, was not one to accept any excuse or pardon mistakes; but, being especially inclined to the ruin of his kin, would secretly set a snare for him and punish him with death, if he caught him off his guard. [8] But in such a critical situation and anticipating the worst if he were not on the watch, he secretly aimed at the highest rank, if any chance should offer; but for a twofold reason he feared treachery on the part of those nearest to his person, both because they stood in dread of him as cruel and untrustworthy, and because they feared the fortune of Constantius which in civil discords usually had the upper hand. ³ [9] Amid this huge mass of anxieties he received constant letters from [p. 95] the emperor, admonishing and begging him to come to him and covertly hinting that the commonwealth could not be divided and ought not to be, but that each ought to the extent of his powers to lend it aid when it was tottering, doubtless referring to the devastation of Gaul. [10] To this he added an example of not so very great antiquity, that Diocletian and his colleague ⁴ were obeyed by their Caesars as by attendants, who did not remain in one place but hastened about hither and thither, and that in Syria Galerius, clad in purple, walked for nearly a mile before the chariot of his Augustus ⁵ when the latter was angry with him.

[11] After many other messengers came Scudilo, tribune of the targeteers, a skilled artist in persuasion, under the cloak of a somewhat rough nature. He alone of all, by means of flattering words mingled with false oaths, succeeded in persuading Gallus to set out, constantly repeating with hypocritical expression that his cousin would ardently wish to see him, that being a mild and merciful prince he would overlook anything that was done through inadvertence; that he would make him a sharer in his rank, to be a partner also in the labours which the northern provinces, for a long time wearied, demanded. [12] And since, when the fates lay hands upon men, their senses are apt to be dulled and blunted, Gallus was roused by these blandishments to the hope of a better destiny, and leaving Antioch under the lead of an unpropitious power, he proceeded to go straight from the smoke into the fire, as the old proverb has [p. 97] it; and entering Constantinople as if in the height of prosperity and security, he exhibited horse-races and crowned Thorax the charioteer as victor.

[13] On learning this Constantius was enraged beyond all human bounds, and lest by any chance Gallus should become uncertain as to the future and should try in the course of his journey to take measures for his own safety, all the soldiers in the towns through which he would pass were purposely removed. [14] And at that time Taurus, who had been sent to Armenia as quaestor, boldly passed that way without addressing him or going to see him. Others, however, visited him by the emperor's orders, under pretext of various matters of business, but really to take care that he should not be able to make any move or indulge in any secret enterprise; among these was Leontius, then quaestor and later prefect of the city, Lucillianus, as count commander of the household troops, and a tribune of the targeteers called Bainobaudes. [15] Thus, after covering long distances over level country, he had entered Hadrianopolis, a city in the region of Mt. Haemus, formerly called Uscudama, and for twelve days was recovering his strength, exhausted by his exertions. There he learned that certian Theban legions that were passing the winter in near-by towns had sent some of their comrades to encourage him by faithful and sure promises to remain there, since they were full of confidence in their strength and were posted in large numbers in neighbouring encampments; but owing to the watchful care of those about him, he could not steal an opportunity of seeing them or hearing the message that they brought. [16] Then, as [p. 99] letter followed letter, urging him to leave, making use of ten public vehicles, as was directed, and leaving behind all his attendants with the exception of a few whom he had brought with him to serve in his bedroom and at his table, he was driven to make haste, being without proper care of his person and urged on by many, railing from time to time at the rashness which had reduced him, now mean and abject, to submit to the will of the lowest of mankind. [17] Yet all this time, whenever nature allowed him sleep, his senses were wounded by frightful spectres that shrieked about him, and throngs of those whom he had slain, led by Domitianus and Montius, would seize him and fling him to the claws of the Furies, as he imagined in his dreams. [18] For the mind, when freed from the bonds of the body, being always filled with tireless movement, from the underlying thoughts and worries which torment the minds of mortals, conjures up the nocturnal visions to which we ⁶ give the name of phantasies.

[19] And thus with the way opened by the sad decree of fate, by which it was ordained that he should be stripped of life and rank, he hurried by the most direct way and with relays of horses and came to Petobio, a town of Noricum. There all the secret plots were revealed and Count Barbatio suddenly made his appearance—he had commanded the household troops under Gallus—accompanied by Apodemius, of the secret service, ⁷ and at the head of soldiers whom Constantius had chosen because they were under obligation to him for favours and could [p. 101] not, he felt sure, be influenced by bribes or any feeling of pity.

[20] And now the affair was being carried on with no disguised intrigue, but where the palace stood without the walls Barbatio surrounded it with armed men. And entering when the light was now dim and removing the Caesar's royal robes, he put upon him a tunic and an ordinary soldier's cloak, assuring him with frequent oaths, as if by the emperor's command, that he would suffer no further harm. Then he said to him: “Get up at once,” and having unexpectedly placed him in a private carriage, he took him to Histria, near the town of Pola, where in former times, as we are informed, Constantine's son Crispus was killed. [21] And while he was kept there in closest confinement, already as good as buried by fear of his approaching end, there hastened to him Eusebius, at that time grand chamberlain, Pentadius, the secretary, and Mallobaudes, tribune of the guard, ⁸ to compel him by order of the emperor to inform them, case by case, why he had ordered the execution of all those whom he had put to death at Antioch. [22] At this, o'erspread with the pallor of Adrastus, ⁹ he was able to say only that he had slain most of them at the instigation of his wife Constantina, ¹⁰ assuredly not knowing that when the mother of Alexander the Great urged her son to put an innocent man to death and said again and again, in the hope of later gaining what she desired, that she had carried him for nine months in her womb, the king made this wise answer: “Ask some other reward, dear mother, for a man's life is not to be weighed against any favour.” [23] On hearing this the emperor, smitten with [p. 103] implacable anger and resentment, rested all his hopes of securing his safety on destroying Gallus; and sending Serenianus, who, as I have before shown, had been charged with high treason and acquitted by some jugglery or other, and with him Pentadius the secretary and Apodemius of the secret service, he condemned him to capital punishment. Accordingly his hands were bound, after the fashion of some guilty robber, and he was beheaded. Then his face and head were mutilated, and the man who a little while before had been a terror to cities and provinces was left a disfigured corpse. [24] But the justice of the heavenly power was everywhere watchful; for not only did his cruel deeds prove the ruin of Gallus, but not long afterwards a painful death overtook both of those whose false blandishments and perjuries led him, guilty though he was, into the snares of destruction. Of these Scudilo, because of an abscess of the liver, ¹¹ vomited up his lungs and so died; Barbatio, who for a long time had invented false accusations against Gallus, charged by the whispers of certain men of aiming higher than the mastership of the infantry, was found guilty and by an unwept end made atonement to the shades of the Caesar, whom he had treacherously done to death.

[25] These and innumerable other instances of the kind are sometimes (and would that it were always so!) the work of Adrastia, ¹² the chastiser of evil deeds and the rewarder of good actions, whom we also call by the second name of Nemesis. She is, as it were, the sublime jurisdiction of an efficient divine power, [p. 105] dwelling, as men think, above the orbit of the moon; or as others define her, an actual guardian presiding with universal sway over the destinies of individual men. The ancient theologians, regarding her as the daughter of Justice, say that from an unknown eternity she looks down upon all the creatures of earth. [26] She, as queen of causes and arbiter and judge ¹³ of events, controls the urn with its lots and causes the changes of fortune, ¹⁴ and sometimes she gives our plans a different result than that at which we aimed, changing and confounding many actions. She too, binding the vainly swelling pride of mortals with the indissoluble bond of fate, and tilting changeably, as she knows how to do, the balance of gain and loss, now bends and weakens the uplifted necks of the proud, and now, raising the good from the lowest estate, lifts them to a happy life. Moreover, the storied past has given her wings in order that she might be thought to come to all with swift speed; and it has given her a helm to hold and has put a wheel beneath her feet, in order that none may fail to know that she runs through all the elements and rules the universe. ¹⁵

[27] By this untimely death, although himself weary of his existence, the Caesar passed from life in the twenty-ninth year of his age, after a rule of four years. He was born in Etruria at Massa in the district of Veternum, being the son of Constantius, the brother of the emperor Constantine, and Galla, the sister of Rufinus and Cerealis, who were distinguished by the [p. 107] vesture ¹⁶ of consul and prefect. [28] He was conspicuous for his handsome person, being well proportioned, with well-knit limbs. He had soft golden hair, and although his beard was just appearing in the form of tender down, yet he was conspicuous for the dignity of greater maturity. But he differed as much from the disciplined character of his brother Julian as did Domitian, son of Vespasian, from his brother Titus. [29] Raised to the highest rank in Fortune's gift, he experienced her fickle changes, which make sport of mortals, now lifting some to the stars, now plunging them in the depths of Cocytus. But although instances of this are innumerable, I shall make cursory mention of only a few. [30] It was this mutable and fickle Fortune that changed the Sicilian Agathocles from a potter to a king, and Dionysius, once the terror of nations, to the head of an elementary school, at Corinth. [31] She it was that raised Andriscus ¹⁷ of Adramyttium, who was born in a fullery, to the title of the Pseudo-Philip, and taught the legitimate son of Perseus the blacksmith's trade as a means of livelihood. ¹⁸ [32] She, too, delivered Mancinus, after his supreme command, to the Numantians, Veturius to the cruelty of the Samnites, and Claudius to the Corsicans, and she subjected Regulus to the savagery of the Carthaginians. Through her injustice Pompey, after he had gained the surname Great by his [p. 109] glorious deeds, was butchered in Egypt to give the eunuchs' pleasure. [33] Eunus, too, a workhouse slave, commanded an army of runaways in Sicily. How many Romans of illustrious birth at the nod of that same arbiter of events embraced the knees of a Viriathus ¹⁹ or a Spartacus! ²⁰ How many heads dreaded by all nations has the fatal excutioner lopped off! One is led to prison, another is elevated to un-looked-for power, a third is cast down from the highest pinnacle of rank. [34] But if anyone should desire to know all these instances, varied and constantly occurring as they are, he will be mad enough to think of searching out the number of the sands and the weight of the mountains.