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[13] After taking these precautions, as the greatness of the enterprise demanded, Julian, knowing by experience the value of anticipating and outstripping an adversary in troublous times, 1 having given written 2 order for a march into Pannonia, advanced his [p. 117] camp and his standards, and unhesitatingly 3 committed himself to whatever Fortune might offer.

1 Cf. 5, 1, above; xxvi. 7, 4; Sallust, Cat. xliii. 4, maximum bonum in celeritate putabat.

2 Cf. Suet. Galba, 6, 2. The tessera was a square tablet on which the watchword (see xiv. 2, 15) or an order, was written; in xxiii. 2, 2, expeditionalis tessera is used for an order to march.

3 temere usually means “rashly, without consideration,” but here the word seems to be used in a good, or at least in a neutral, sense.

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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