[1] Thus then died Valens, at the age of almost fifty and after a reign of a little less than fourteen years. ¹

[2] Of his merits, as known to many, we shall now speak, and of his defects. He was a firm and faithful friend, severe in punishing ambitious designs, strict in maintaining discipline in the army and in civil life, always watchful and anxious lest anyone should elevate himself on the ground of kinship with him; he was excessively slow towards conferring or taking away official positions, ² very just in his rule of the provinces, each of which he protected from injury as he would his own house, lightening the burden of tributes with a kind of special care, allowing no increase in taxes, not extortionate in estimating the indebtedness from arrears, ³ a harsh and bitter enemy of thievish officials and of those detected in peculation. Under no other emperor does the Orient recall meeting better treatment in matters of this kind.

[3] Besides all this, he combined liberality with moderation, and although there are many instances of such conduct, yet it will suffice to set forth one. Since there are always at court some men who are greedy for others’ possessions, if anyone, as often happens, claimed a lapsed estate ⁴ or anything else of the kind, he distinguished clearly between justice and injustice, allowing those who intended to protest ⁵ a chance to state their case; and if he gave it to the petitioner, he often added as sharers in the gifts gained three or four absentees, to the end that restless people might act with more restraint, when they saw that by this device the gain for which they were so greedy was diminished.

[4] As to the public buildings which he restored or built from their very beginning in various cities and towns, in order not to be prolix I say nothing, but leaving this matter to the objects themselves to demonstrate it more obviously than I can. Such conduct is worthy, I think, of emulation by all good men; let me now run through his defects.

[5] He was immoderately desirous of great wealth, and impatient of toil, rather affecting awesome austerity than possessing it, and somewhat inclined to cruelty; he had rather an uncultivated mind, and was trained neither in the art of war nor in liberal studies; he was ready to gain advantage and profit at the expense of others’ suffering, and more intolerable when he attributed offences that were committed to contempt of, or injury to, the imperial dignity; then he vented his rage in bloodshed, and on the ruin of the rich.

[6] It was unendurable also, that although he wished to appear to refer all controversies and judicial investigations to the laws, and entrusted the examination of such affairs to the regular judges as being specially selected men, nevertheless he suffered nothing to be done contrary to his own caprice. He was in other ways unjust, hot tempered, and ready to listen to informers without distinguishing truth from falsity—a shameful fault, which is very greatly to be dreaded even in these our private affairs of every-day occurrence.

[7] He was a procrastinator and irresolute. His complexion was dark, the pupil of one of his eyes was dimmed, ⁶ but in such a way as not to be noticed at a distance; his body was well-knit, his height neither above nor below the average; he was knock-kneed, and somewhat pot-bellied.

[8] This will be enough to say about Valens, and it is fully confirmed by the testimony of records contemporary with me. But it is proper not to omit the following story. At the time of the oracle of the tripod, for which, as I have said, ⁷ Patricius and Hilarius were responsible, he had heard of those three prophetic verses, of which the last is: Being uneducated ⁹ and rude, he disregarded them at first, but as his very great troubles increased he became abjectly timid, and in recalling that prediction used to shudder at the mention of Asia, where, as he heard from the mouths of learned men, Homer and Cicero have written of a mountain called Mimas, rising above the city of Erythrae. ¹⁰

[9] Finally, after his death and the departure of the enemy, it is said that near the place where he was thought to have fallen a monument made of a heap of stones was found, to which was fastened a tablet engraved with Greek characters, showing that a distinguished man of old called Mimas was buried there. ¹¹