Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae, John C. Rolfe (Translator), 26.10.13

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[13] This implacability in a cause which was most just, but where victory brought shame,¹ delivered many innocent victims to the torturers, either placing them on the rack until they were bowed down² or exposing them to the sword-stroke of a cruel executioner. It would have been better for them (if nature allowed it), to lose even ten lives in battle, rather than though free from all blame, with lacerated sides, amid general groans to suffer punishment for alleged treason, with their bodies first mutilated, a thing which is more awful than any death.

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

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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).) — 26.10.13 focus

[13] Haec implacabilitas causae quidem piissimae, sed victoriae foedioris, innocentes tortoribus exposuit multos, vel sub eculeo locavit¹ incurvos, aut ictu carnificis torvi substravit: quibus (si pateretur natura), vel denas animas profundere praestabat in pugna, quam lateribus fodicatis, omni culpa immunis, fortunis gementibus universis, quasi laesae maiestatis luere poenas, dilaniatis ante corporibus, quod omni est tristius morte.

Notes on the current edition

History

1. Cf. Cic., De O ff. ii. 8, 27, of Julius Caesar,

ergo in illo secuta est honestam causam non honesta victoria.

2. With

sub eculeo locavit incurvos

cf. xxviii. 1, 19,

quamquam incurvus sub eculeo staret.

In both passages sub eculeo is to be taken with the adjective ( incurvos), which is proleptic, meaning under (the torture of) the rack. It cannot be taken literally with locavit and staret, since the eculeus was a wooden instrument shaped somewhat like a horse ( ecus, equus) on which the victim was placed with weights on his feet. There he might also be flogged or tortured in other ways. Though commonly translated rack, the eculeuo was not like the medieval rack.

Ammianus Marcellinus Res Gestae 26.10.13

John C. Rolfe (Translator)

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