[1] In this welter of adverse events Constantius’ fortune, already wavering and at a standstill, showed clearly by signs almost as plain as words, that a crisis in his life was at hand. For at night he was alarmed by apparitions, and when he was not yet wholly sunk in sleep, the ghost of his father seemed to hold out to him a fair child; and when he took it and set it in his lap, it shook from him the ball ¹ which he held in his right hand and threw it to a great distance. And this foretold a change in the state, although the seers gave reassuring answers.

[2] After that he admitted to his more intimate attendants that, as though forsaken, he ceased to see a kind of secret something ² which he used to think occasionally appeared to him, though somewhat dimly; and it was supposed that a sort of guardian spirit, assigned to protect his life, had deserted him, since he was destined quickly to leave this world.

[3] For the theologians maintain that there are associated with all men at their birth, but without interference with the established course of destiny, certain divinities of that sort, as directors of their conduct; but they have been seen by only a very few, whom their manifold merits have raised to eminence.

[4] And this oracles and writers of distinction have shown; among the latter is also the comic poet Menander, in whom we read these two senarii:

[5] Likewise from the immortal poems of Homer ⁴ we are given to understand that it was not the gods of heaven that spoke with brave men, and stood by them or aided them as they fought, but that guardian spirits attended them; and through reliance upon their special support, it is said, that Pythagoras, Socrates, and Numa Pompilius ⁵ became famous; also the earlier Scipio, ⁶ and (as some believe) Marius and Octavianus, who first had the title of Augustus conferred upon him, and Hermes Trismegistus, ⁷ Apollonius of Tyana, ⁸ and Plotinus, ⁹ who ventured to discourse on this mystic theme, and to present a profound discussion of the question by what elements these spirits are linked with men’s souls, and taking them to their bosoms, as it were, protect them (as long as possible) and give them higher instruction, if they perceive that they are pure and kept from the pollution of sin through association with an immaculate body.