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[1] After this business had been thus attended to, we came by long marches to Antioch; where for successive days, as though the divinity were angered, many fearful portents were seen, which those skilled in such signs declared would have sad results.
[2] For the statue of the Caesar Maximianus, which stood in the vestibule of the royal palace, suddenly dropped the brazen ball, in the form of the globe of heaven, which it was holding,
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the beams of the council hall gave forth an awful creaking, and in broad daylight comets were seen, about which the views of those versed in natural history are at variance.
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[3] For some think that they are so called because they are numerous stars united in one body,
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and send out writhing fires resembling hair.
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Others believe that they take fire from the dryer exhalations of the earth, which gradually rise higher. Others again think that the rays streaming from the sun are prevented by the interposition of a heavier cloud from going downward, and when the brightness is suffused through the thick substance, it presents to men’s eyes a kind of star-spangled light. Yet others have formed the opinion that this phenomenon occurs when an unusually high cloud is lit up by the nearness of the eternal fires, or at any rate, that comets are stars like the rest, the appointed times of whose rising and setting
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are not understood by human minds. Many other theories about comets are to be found in the writings of those who are skilled in knowledge of the universe; but from discussing these I am prevented by my haste to continue my narrative.
[4] The emperor lingered for a time at Antioch, bowed down by the weight of divers cares, but pursued by an extraordinary desire for getting out of the place. Accordingly, he left there on a day in the dead of winter, sparing neither horse nor man, although many signs (as has been said) forbade, and entered Tarsus, the famous city of Cilicia, of whose origin I have already spoken.
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[5] Though in excessive haste to leave that place, he determined to adorn the tomb of Julian,
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situated just outside the walls on the road which leads to the passes of Mount Taurus. But his remains and ashes, if anyone then showed sound judgement, ought not to be looked on by the Cydnus,
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although it is a beautiful and clear stream, but to perpetuate the glory of his noble deeds they should be laved by the Tiber, which cuts through the eternal city and flows by the memorials of the deified emperors of old.
[6] After this the emperor left Tarsus, and making long marches arrived at Tyana, a town of Cappadocia, where on their return the secretary Procopius and the tribune Memoridus
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met him. They gave him an account of their missions, beginning (as order demanded) with the entry of Lucillianus with the tribunes Seniauchus and Valentinianus, whom he had taken with him, into Mediolanum; but on learning that Malarichus refused to accept the position
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he had gone at full speed to Rheims.
[7] Then, as if that nation were in profound peace, he ran off the track (as the saying is), and quite out of season, since everything was not yet secure, devoted his attention to examining the accounts of a former actuary. This man, being conscious of deceit and wrong-doing, fled for refuge to the army and falsely asserted that Julian was still alive and that a man of no distinction had raised a rebellion; in consequence of his falsehoods a veritable storm broke out among the soldiery, and Lucillianus and Seniauchus were killed. For Valentinianus, who was shortly afterwards emperor, in terror and not knowing where to turn, was safely gotten out of the way by Primitivus, his guest-friend.
[8] This sad news was followed by another message, this time a happy one, namely, that soldiers sent by Jovian, heads of the divisions,
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as camp parlance termed them, were on the way, reporting that the Gallic army embraced with favour the rule of Jovian.
[9] On receipt of this news Valentinian, who had returned with the others, was entrusted with the command of the second division of the targeteers, and Vitalianus, formerly a soldier in the division of the Eruli, was made a member of the household troops; long afterwards he was raised to the rank of Count, but suffered a defeat in Illyricum. Arintheus was hastily sent to Gaul, bearing letters to Jovinus, urging him to act firmly in holding his position; he was also bidden to punish the originator of the disturbance and to send the ringleaders in the rebellion in fetters to the court.
[10] After these arrangements had been made as seemed expedient, the officers of the Gallic troops had audience with the emperor at Aspuna, a small town of Galatia; when they entered the council chamber, the news which they brought was heard with pleasure, and after receiving rewards, they were ordered to return to their posts.
[11] When the emperor had entered Ancyra, after the necessary arrangements for his procession had been made, so far as the conditions allowed, he assumed the consulship, taking as his colleague in the office his son Varronianus, who was still a small child
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; and his crying and obstinate resistance to being carried, as usual, on the curule chair, were an omen of what presently occurred.
[12] From here also the destined day for ending his life drove Jovian swiftly on. For when he had come to Dadastana, which forms the boundary between Bithynia and Galatia, he was found dead that night. As to his taking-off, many doubtful points have come up.
[13] For it is said that he was unable to endure the unwholesome odour of a recently plastered bedroom, or that his head was swollen from the burning of a great amount of charcoal and so he died, or at any rate that he had a fit of acute indigestion from an immoderate amount of food of different kinds.
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At all events he died in the thirty-third year of his age.
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The end of his life was like that of Scipio Aemilianus,
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but so far as I know no investigation was made of the death of either.
[14] He walked with a dignified bearing; his expression was very cheerful. His eyes were gray. He was so unusually tall that for some time no imperial robe could be found that was long enough for him. He took as his model Constantius, often spending the afternoon in some serious occupation, but accustomed to jest in public with his intimates.
[15] So too he was devoted to the Christian doctrine and sometimes paid it honour.
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He was only moderately educated, of a kindly nature, and (as appears from the few promotions that he made) inclined to select state officials with care. But he was an immoderate eater, given to wine and women, faults which perhaps he would have corrected out of regard for the imperial dignity.
[16] It was said that his father, Varronianus, learned what would happen long beforehand from the suggestion of a dream, and trusted the information to two of his confidential friends, adding the remark that the consular robe
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would be conferred also on himself. But although one prophecy was fulfilled, he could not attain the other prediction. For after learning of the elevation of his son, he was overtaken by death before seeing him again.
[17] And since it was foretold to the old man in a dream that the highest magistracy awaited one of that name, his grandson Varronianus, then still a child, was (as I have before related) made consul together with his father Jovianus.
Res Gestae. Ammianus Marcellinus. John C. Rolfe (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1935-1940.
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