Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae, John C. Rolfe (Translator), 22.12.8

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

View: By Chapter

← Previous Next →

[8] While these things were thus going on, as if in time of peace, Julian devoted to many interests, entered upon a new way of consultation, and thought of opening the prophetic springs of the Castalian fount;¹ this, it is said, Caesar Hadrian had blocked up with a huge mass of stones, for fear that (as he himself had learned from the prophetic waters² that he was destined to become emperor), others also might get similar information. And Julian, after invoking the god, decided that the bodies which had been buried around the spring,³ should be moved to another place, under the same ceremonial with which the Athenians had purified the island of Delos.⁴

Res Gestae. Ammianus Marcellinus. John C. Rolfe (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1935-1940.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by Tufts University.

Current edition Perseus

History (English) (Ammianus Marcellinus. Ammianus Marcellinus, with an English translation, Vols. I-III. Rolfe, John C., translator. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; W. Heinemann, 1935-1940 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Res Gestae Perseus (Ammianus Marcellinus. Ammianus Marcellinus, with an English translation, Vols. I-III. Rolfe, John C., editor. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; W. Heinemann, 1935-1940 (printing).) — 22.12.8 focus

[8] Haecque dum more pacis¹ ita procedunt, multorum curiosior Iulianus, novam² consilii viam ingressus est, venas fatidicas Castalii recludere cogitans fontis, quem obstruxisse Caesar dicitur Hadrianus mole saxorum ingenti, veritus ne (ut ipse praecinentibus aquis capessendam rem publicam comperit), etiam alii similia docerentur: deumque adfatus³ circumhumata corpora statuit exinde transferri, eo ritu quo Athenienses insulam purgaverant Delon.

Notes on the current edition

History

1. Not the one at Delphi, but a spring at Daphne, a suburb of Antioch.

2. According to Sozomenus, Church History, v. 19, he threw a laurel leaf into the spring, and, when he took it out, found on it a note, which confirmed his hopes.

3. Caesar Gallus, in order to purify the place from pagan superstition, had caused the remains of martyrs to be brought there.

4. First under Peisistratus (Hdt. i. 64) and again in the sixth year of the Peloponnesian war (Thuc. iii. 104, 1)

Ammianus Marcellinus Res Gestae 22.12.8

John C. Rolfe (Translator)

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

Current edition Perseus

Notes on the current edition

Stable identifiers