mountainman

OBITUARY of Constantius (succeeded Constantine 337CE to 361)
from
Res Gestae, Ammianus Marcelinus
LOEB translation (Rolfe)
Book 21: 16

16. The virtues of Constantius Augustus, and his faults.


1. Observing, therefore, a true distinction between
his good qualities and his defects, it will always be
fitting to set forth his good points first [1]. He always
maintained the dignity of imperial majesty, and
his greatness and lofty spirit disdained the favout
of the populace. He was exceedingly sparing in
confering the higher dignitaries, with few exceptions
allowing no innovations in the way of additions
to the administrative offices; and he never let the
military lift their heads too high.

2. Under him no leader of an army
was advancing to the rank of clarissimus.
For they all were (according to my personal
recollection) all perfectissimi [2]. The governor
of a province never officially met a commander [3] of the
cavalry, nor was the latter official allowed to take
part in civil affairs. But all the military and civil
officials always looked up to the praetorian prefects
with the old-time respect, as the peak of all authority.

3. In the maintenance of the soldiers he was
exceedingly careful; somewhat critical at times in
evaluating services, he bestowed appointments at
court by the plumb line [4], as it were. Under him no
one who was to hold a high position was apppointed
to a post in the palace suddenly or untried, but a
man who after ten years was to be marshall of the
court, or head treasurer, or to fill any similar post,
was thoroughly known. It very rarely happened
that any military officer passed to a civil magistracy,
and on the other hand, none were put in command
of soldiers who had not grown hardy in the dust of battle.

4. He made great pretensions to learning [5],
but after failing in rhetoric because of dullness of
mind, he turned to making verses, but accomplished
nothing worth while.

5. By a prudent and temperate
manner of life and by moderation in eating
and drinking he maintained such sound health that
he rarely suffered from illnesses, but such that he had
were of a dangerous character. For that abstinence
from dissipation and luxury have this effect on the
body is shown by repeated experience, as well as by
the statements of physicians.

6. He was content
with little sleep when time and circumstances so
required. Throughout the entire span of his life
he was so extraordinarily chaste, that not even
a suspicion could be raised against him even by an
ill-disposed attendant on his private life, a charge
which malice, even if it fails to discover it, still
trumps up, having regard to the unrestrained liberty
of supreme power.

7. In riding, in hurling the
jabelin, and especially in the skilful use of the bow,
and in all the exercises of the foot-soldiers, he was
an adept. That no one ever saw him wipe his
mouth or nose in public, or spit, or turn his face
in either direction [6], or that so long as he lived
he never tasted fruit, I leave unmentioned, since it
has often been related.

8. Having given a succinct account of his merits,
as far as I could know them, let us now come to an
enumeration of his defects. While in administrative
affairs he was comparable to other emperors of
medium quality, if he found any indication, however
slight or groundless, of an aspiration to the supreme
power, by endless investigations, in which he made
no distinction between right and wrong, he easily
surpassed the savagery of Caligula, Domitan, and
Commodus. For it was in rivalry of the cruelty
of those emperors that at the beginning of his reign
he destroyed root and branch of all who were related
to him by blood and race.

9. To add to the sufferings
of the wretches who were reported to him for
impairment of, or insult to, his majesty, his bitterness
and agry suspicions were stretched to the uttermost
in all such cases. If anything of the kind was
bruited abroad, he gave himself up to inquisitions
with more eagerness that humanity, and appointed
for such trials merciless judges; and in the punishment
of some he tried to make their death lingering,
if nature allowed, in some particulars being even
more ruthless that Gellienus in such inquisitions.

10. As a matter of fact, he was the object of many
genuine plots of traitors, such as Aureolus, Postumus,
Ingenuus, Valens [7] surnamed Thessalonicus, and
several others, yet he often showed leniency in
punishing crimes which would bring death to the
victim; but he also tried to make false or doubtful
cases appear well-founded by excessively violent
tortures.

11. And in such affairs he showed deadly
enmity to justice, although he made a special effort
to be considered just and merciful. And as sparks
flying from a dry forest even with a slight breeze of
wind come with irresistable course and bring danger
to rural villages, so he also from trivial causes roused
up a mass of evils, unlike that revered prince Marcus [8],
who, when Cassius had mounted to imperial heights
in Syria, and a packet of letters sent by him to his
accomplices had fallen into the emperor's hands
through the capture of their bearer, at once ordered
it to be burned unopened, in order that, being at the
time still in Illyricum, he might not know who were
plotting against him, and hence be forced to hate
some men against his will. [9]

12. And, as some right-thinking
men believed, it would have been a striking
indication of true worth in Constantius, if he had
renounced his power without bloodshed, rather than
defended it so mercilessly.

13. And this Tully also
shows in a letter to Nepos, in which he taxes Caesar
with cruelty, saying: "For happiness is nothing
else than success in noble actions. Or, to express it
differently, happiness is the good fortune that aids
worthy designs, and one who does not aim at these
can in no wise be happy. Therefore in lawless and
impious plans, such as Caesar followed, there could
be no happiness. Happier, in my judgement, was
Camilus in exile than was Manlius [10] at that same
time, even if (as he had desired) he had succeeded in
making himself king." [11]

14. Heraclitus the Euphesian [12]
also agrees with this, when he reminds us that
the weak and cowardly have sometimes, through the
mutability of fortune, been victorious over emminent
men; but that the most conspicuous praise is won,
when high-placed power sending, as it were, under the
yoke of inclinations to harm, to be angry, and to
show cruelty, on the citadel of a spirit victorious
over itself has raised a glorious trophy.

15. Now, although this emperor in foreign wars
met with loss and disaster, yet he was elated by his
success in civil conflicts and drenched with aweful
gore from the internal wounds of the state. It was
on this unworthy rather thatn just or usual ground [13]
that in Gaul and Pannonia he erected triumphal
arches [14] at great expense commemorating the ruin
of the provinces [15], and added records of his deeds,
that men might read of him so long as those
monuments could last.

16. He was to an excessive degree
under the influence of his wives, and the shrill-voiced
eunuchs, and certain of the court officials, who
applauded his every word, and listened for his "yes"
or "no", in order to be able to agree with him.

17. The bitterness of the times were increased by the
insatiate extortion of the tax-collectors, who brought
him more hatred than money; and to many this
seemed more intolerable, for the reason that he
never investgated a dispute, nor had regard for the
welfare of the provinces, although they were
oppressed by the multiplication of taxes and tributes.
And besides this, he found it easy to take away
exemptions which he had once given.

18. The plain [16] and simple religion of the Christians
he obscured by a dotard's superstition, and by subtle
and involved discussions about dogma, rather than by
seriously trying to make them agree, he roused many
controversies; and as these spread more and more,
he fed them with contentious words. And since
throngs of bishops hastened hither and thither on the
public post-horses to the various synods, as they call
them, while he sought to make the whole ritual
conform to his own will, he cut the sinews of the
courier service.

19. His bodily appearance and form were as
follows: he was rather dark, with bulging eyes and
sharp-sighted; his hair was soft and his regularly
shaven cheeks were neat and shining; from the
meeting of neck and shoulders to the groin he was
unusually long, and his legs were very short and
bowed, for which reason he was good at running and
leaping.


20. When the corpse of the deceased emperor
had been washed and placed in a coffin, Jovianus,
who was at that time still an officer in the body-
guard, was ordered to escort it with regal pomp to
Constantinople, to ne interred beside his kinsfolk.

21. And as he sat in the carraige that bore the
remains, samples of the soldiers' rations ("probae"
as they themselves call them) were presented to
him, as they commonly are to emperors [17], and the
public courier horses were shown to him, and the
people thronged about him in the customary manner.
These and similar things foretold imperial power for
the said Jovianus, but of an empty and shadowy
kind, since he was merely the director of a funeral
procession.


Footnotes:

[1] With this chapter, cf. 24:5:1-4

[2] See Introd. Clarissimi were member of the
senatorial order who, as the sons of senators,
inherited their rank; but the title included
those who were made senators by adlectio.

[3] On his arrival in the provence.

[4] The metaphorical use of this expression does
not seem to be common; it occurs also in Ausonius,
Parentalia, v.8, ad perpendicualrum se suosque
habuit.

[5] cf. Eusebius, Vita Constantini, iv. 51

[6] cf. 16:10:10

[7] In Illyricum, Gaul, Pannonia and Archaia
respectively.

[8] Marcus Aurelius

[9] cf. Dio 62:26:38

[10] M. Manlius saved the Roman citadel when the Gauls
took the city in 387 BCE. Later, because he defended
the commons, he was accused of aspiring to regal power
and hurled from the Tarpeian Rock.

[11] A fragment preserved by Ammianus alone, not found
in Cicero's extant works.

[12] "The weeping philosopher," as Democritus was
"the laughing philosopher"; cf. Juvenal, 10.33 ff
He flourished about 535-475 BCE.

[13] It was usual to celebrate a triumph only over foreign
enemies, and the same rule applied to triumphal arches.
ED: Research the "Arch of Constantine".

[14] Although this term is so common in English, this is the
first and only occurrence in Latin literature, and it is
found besides only in four late inscriptions from
Northen Africa.

[15] That is, his victories over his rivals, and the bloodshed
and ruin attending them.

[16] Cf. absolutio, 14:10:13,
responsum absolutum, 30:1:4,
planis absolutisque decretis, 22:5:2

[17] The emperors took pains to see that the soldiers were
well fed. Cf. Spartianus, Hadr, 11:1; Lamridius, Alex. Sev 15:5



FYI.



Pete Brown
AUTHORS of ANTIQUITY
http://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/article_029.htm

mountainman

Minor Note:

The excessive taxation measures, including the novel introduction
of a poll tax (on each individual citizen of the then ROman empire),
and the establishment of separate civil and military posts per diocese
(and additionally the establishment of a third administrative system
comprised of individually appointed Roman bishops at Nicaea - see
the 22 sub-oaths appended to the Nicaean Oath) were all implemented
by Constantine, as outlined in my earlier post:

Constantine in brief: highly intelligent supreme imperial mafia thug
located here:
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=176000



Pete Brown