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[4] And also even in the case of Pompey, some malevolent critics, who after much search found nothing for which he could be blamed, noted these two laughable and silly facts: that in a certain characteristic way he used to scratch his head with one finger, and that for some time, to cover up an ugly ulcer, he wore a white bandage tied around his leg; the one of these things he did, they affirmed, because he was dissipated, the other because he planned a revolution, snarling at him with the somewhat pointless reason, that it mattered not what part of his body he bound with the emblem of kingly majesty 1 —and this to a man than whom, as the clearest of proofs show; none was more valiant or circumspect with regard to his country.

1 The white fillet, to which the bandage was likened, was emblematic of royalty; see Suet., Jul. 79, 1.

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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