The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus: During the Reigns of the Emperors Constantius, Julian, Jovianus, Valentinian, and ValensAmmianus Marcellinus
History
The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus: During the Reigns of the Emperors Constantius, Julian, Jovianus, Valentinian, and Valens
Ammianus Marcellinus
Rome -- History -- Empire, 284-476
7. Martinus, who at that time governed these provinces as deputy, being
greatly concerned for the sufferings inflicted on innocent men, and
making frequent entreaties that those who were free from all guilt
might be spared, when he found that he could not prevail, threatened to
withdraw from the province, in the hope that this malevolent inquisitor,
Paulus, might be afraid of his doing so, and so give over exposing to
open danger men who had combined only in a wish for tranquillity.
8. Paulus, thinking that this conduct of Martinus was a hindrance to his
own zeal, being, as he was, a formidable artist in involving matters,
from which people gave him the nickname of "the Chain," attacked the
deputy himself while still engaged in defending the people whom he was
set to govern, and involved him in the dangers which surrounded every
one else, threatening that he would carry him, with his tribunes and
many other persons, as a prisoner to the emperor's court. Martinus,
alarmed at this threat, and seeing the imminent danger in which his life
was, drew his sword and attacked Paulus. But because from want of
strength in his hand he was unable to give him a mortal wound, he then
plunged his drawn sword into his own side. And by this unseemly kind of
death that most just man departed from life, merely for having dared to
interpose some delay to the miserable calamities of many citizens.
9. And when these wicked deeds had been perpetrated, Paulus, covered
with blood, returned to the emperor's camp, bringing with him a crowd of
prisoners almost covered with chains, in the lowest condition of squalor
and misery; on whose arrival the racks were prepared, and the
executioner began to prepare his hooks and other engines of torture. Of
these prisoners, many of them had their property confiscated, others
were sentenced to banishment, some were given over to the sword of the
executioner. Nor is it easy to cite the acquittal of a single person in
the time of Constantius, where the slightest whisper of accusation had
been brought against him.
VI.
§ 1. At this time Orfitus was the governor of the Eternal City, with the
rank of prefect; and he behaved with a degree of insolence beyond the
proper limits of the dignity thus conferred upon him. A man of prudence
indeed, and well skilled in all the forensic business of the city, but
less accomplished in general literature and in the fine arts than was
becoming in a nobleman. Under his administration some very formidable
seditions broke out in consequence of the scarcity of wine, as the
people, being exceedingly eager for an abundant use of that article,
were easily excited to frequent and violent disorders.
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