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[6] He felt the disease crushing him with a mighty force, and knew that the fated and of his life was at hand; and he tried to speak or give some orders, as was indicated by the gasps that often heaved his sides, 1 by the grinding of his teeth, and by movements of his arms as if of men fighting with the cestus; but finally his strength failed him, his body was covered with livid spots, and after a long struggle for life he breathed his last, in the fifty-fifth year of his age and the twelfth of his reign, less a hundred days. 2

1 Cf. Virg. Aen. ix. 415.

2 He was made Augustus A.D. Kal. Mart. (Feb. 23), 364, and died A.D. xv. Kal. Dec. (Nov. 18), 375.

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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