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[1] At about the same time Marcellus, an officer of the guard and a relative of Procopius, commanding the garrison at Nicaea and learning of the betrayal of the usurper by the soldiers and his consequent death, at the fearful hour of midnight unexpectedly attacked Serenianus, who was imprisoned within the palace,
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and killed him; and his death saved the lives of many.
[2] For if this man of rude nature, burning with a cruel desire to hurt, had survived the victory, being dear to Valens because of their likeness of character and their common fatherland, and well aware of the secret wishes of a prince inclined to cruelty, he would have caused the death of many innocent people.
[3] After killing Serenianus, Marcellus quickly got possession of Chalcedon, and, supported by the cheers of a few, whom their worthlessness and desperation drove to crime, seized the shadow of a fatal principate. He was deceived by two ideas, first because the kings of the Goths, who had now been conciliated, had sent three thousand men
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to the aid of Procopius, led by his show of relationship to Constantius, and Marcellus thought that these men could for a small sum be brought over to his side; and secondly, because he had not yet learned what had happened in Illyricum.
[4] In the midst of this great confusion Aequitius, who had learned from trustworthy sources that the whole burden of the war had been transferred to Asia, marched through the pass of Succi and with all his might tried to open Philippopolis, formerly Eumolpias,
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which had been closed by the enemy’s garrison; for that city was very favourably situated and, if left in his rear, could hinder his attempt, if he should be compelled to hasten to Haemimontus
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in order to bring reinforcements to Valens; for he had not yet learned what had happened at Nacolia.
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[5] But learning a little later of the vain presumption of Marcellus, he at once sent bold and active soldiers who seized him and imprisoned him as a guilty slave. A few days later the usurper was brought out, his body was soundly scourged, and after his accomplices had been similarly treated, he was put to death: a man who deserves credit only for making away with Serenianus, who was cruel as Phalaris, and loyal to Procopius because of the accursed science which for vain reasons he pretended to have.
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[6] Through the death of the leader
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the horrors of war were rooted out; but many were punished more severely than their errors or faults demanded, especially the defenders of Philippopolis, who surrendered the city and themselves most reluctantly, and only when they saw the head of Procopius, which was being taken to Gaul.
[7] Some, however, through the influence of those who interceded for them, were treated more leniently, among them notably Araxius, who in the very heat of the conflagration had solicited and gained the prefecture;
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he, through the intercession of his son-in-law Agilo, was deported to an island, but soon afterwards made his escape.
[8] Euphrasius, however, and also Phronimius were sent to the west and left to the decision of Valentinian.
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Euphrasius was pardoned, but Phronimius was banished to the Chersonesus,
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receiving a severer punishment for the same offence because he had been well regarded by the deified Julian, whose noteworthy merits both the imperial brothers
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depreciated, without being his equal or anywhere near it.
[9] To these events were added other more serious matters, far more to be feared than those of wartime. For executioner, instruments of torture, and bloody inquisitions raged without any distinction of age or of rank through all classes and orders, and under the mantle of peace
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abominable robbery was carried on, while all cursed the ill-omened victory, which was worse than any war, however destructive.
[10] For amid arms and clarions, equality of condition makes dangers lighter; the force of martial valour either destroys what it attacks, or ennobles it; and death (if it comes) is attended with no sense of shame and brings with it at once an end of life and of suffering. But when the laws and statutes are pretexts for impious designs, and judges take their seats in false imitation of the character of a Cato or a Cassius,
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but everything is decided according to the will of men of swollen powers, and by their caprice the question of the life or death of all those who come before them is weighed, then, destruction results that is deadly and sudden.
[11] For when any one at that time had become powerful for any reason, and having almost royal authority and being consumed with longing to seize the goods of others, accused some clearly guiltless person, he was welcomed as an intimate and loyal friend,
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who was to be enriched by the ruin of other men.
[12] For the emperor, rather inclined himself to do injury, lent his ear to accusers, listened to death-dealing denunciations, and took unbridled joy in various kinds of executions; unaware of that saying of Cicero’s which asserts that those are unlucky who think that they have power to do anything they wish.
[13] This implacability in a cause which was most just, but where victory brought shame,
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delivered many innocent victims to the torturers, either placing them on the rack until they were bowed down
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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.
[14] When finally ferocity was overcome by the grief that it caused, and had burnt itself out, the most distinguished men suffered proscription, exile, and other punishments which seem lighter to some, terrible though they are; and in order that another might be enriched, a man of noble birth and perhaps richer in deserts was deprived of his patrimony and driven headlong into banishment, there to waste away from sorrow, or to support his life by beggary; and no limit was set to the deadly cruelties, until the emperor and his nearest friends were glutted with wealth and bloodshed.
[15] While that usurper
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of whose many deeds and his death we have told, still survived, on the twenty-first of July in the first consulship of Valentinian with his brother,
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horrible phenomena suddenly spread through the entire extent of the world, such as are related to us neither in fable nor in truthful history.
[16] For a little after daybreak, preceded by heavy and repeated thunder and lightning, the whole of the firm and solid earth was shaken and trembled, the sea with its rolling waves was driven back and withdrew from the land, so that in the abyss of the deep thus revealed men saw many kinds of sea-creatures stuck fast in the slime; and vast mountains and deep valleys, which Nature, the creator, had hidden in the unplumbed depths, then, as one might well believe, first saw the beams of the sun.
[17] Hence, many ships were stranded as if on dry land, and since many men roamed about without fear in the little that remained of the waters, to gather fish and similar things
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with their hands, the roaring sea, resenting, as it were, this forced retreat, rose in its turn; and over the boiling shoals it dashed mightily upon islands and broad stretches of the mainland, and levelled innumerable buildings in the cities and wherever else they were found; so that amid the mad discord of the elements the altered face of the earth revealed marvellous sights.
[18] For the great mass of waters, returning when it was least expected, killed many thousands of men by drowning; and by the swift recoil of the eddying tides a number of ships, after the swelling of the wet element subsided, were seen to have foundered, and the lifeless bodies of shipwrecked persons lay floating on their backs or on their faces.
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Res Gestae. Ammianus Marcellinus. John C. Rolfe (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1935-1940.
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