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[4] When he saw that its walls 1 had sunk into a pitiful heap of ashes, showing his distress by silent tears he went with lagging step to the palace: and in particular he wept over the wretched state of the city because the senate and the people, who had formerly been in a most flourishing condition, met him in mourning garb. And certain of them he recognised, since he had been brought up there under the bishop Eusebius, 2 whose distant relative he was.

1 That is of the public buildings and monuments erected by former emperors. The city had suffered from an earth- quake and a fire that lasted for five days and nights; cf. xvii. 7, 1-8.

2 Eusebius of Nicomedia, not the Church historian, Eusebius of Caesaraea.

Ammianus Marcellinus. With An English Translation. John C. Rolfe, Ph.D., Litt.D. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1935-1940.

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