Panegyric in Honour of the Emperor Constantius

1. For a long time, greatest of emperors, I have been eager to celebrate your virtue and your deeds, to recount your wars and to tell how you overthrew the usurpers—drawing off the bodyguard of the one by reason and persuasion, and defeating the other by force of arms—but the very magnitude of those deeds held me back. I did not judge it a grave thing that the account should fall a little short of the achievements, but rather that I might seem to fail of my subject altogether. For those who spend their lives in the contests of public life and in poetry, it is no wonder if they can readily attempt to praise what you have accomplished; their constant practice in speaking and their familiarity with public display give them confidence to take the floor. But those who have neglected that side of things and turned to another kind of education, to a manner of writing that does not aim to please the crowd and does not dare to strip for the contest in theatres of every sort—these may reasonably feel more cautious about public performances. For it is plain enough that to poets the Muses, and the belief that their poetry is written under inspiration from that source, grant unstinted license to invent. The art of the rhetoricians gives them an equal immunity: it has taken away from them the power to invent, but it has by no means forbidden them to flatter, nor has it judged it any acknowledged disgrace for a speaker to praise falsely those who do not deserve praise. The poets, when they bring forward some new tale never conceived by their predecessors, having composed it themselves, win the more admiration by charming their hearers with its strangeness; the rhetoricians say they reap the profit of their art in the power to treat small things on a larger scale, to strip greatness from achievements by their words, and, in general, to set the power of speech against the very nature of facts.

For my own part, if I saw that I myself stood in need of this art at the present moment, I would keep the silence proper to those who have no practice in such discourses, and would yield the praise of you to those I have just mentioned. But since the present occasion calls for the very opposite—a plain narrative of the facts, requiring no imported ornament—it seemed to me too that the task belonged to me as much as to anyone, since to give a worthy account of your deeds has proved beyond the reach even of those who came before me. For nearly all who occupy themselves with learning sing your praises, in verse and in prose: some venturing to take in everything in a brief compass, others, devoting themselves to portions of your achievements, thinking it enough if they did not fall short of their worth. And one must admire the eagerness of all the men who have laid hold of your praises. Some, that nothing of your deeds might be dimmed by time, dared to undertake the greatest labour; others, because they expected to fall short of the whole, set forth their own judgement upon a part, deciding it better to offer you a first-fruits of their own labour as far as they could than to claim the safe reward of silence.

If, then, I too happened to be one of those who delight in epideictic speeches, I ought to begin my theme from this point, demanding for myself the same goodwill that I already feel toward you, and asking that you become a kindly hearer of my words rather than an exact and unrelenting judge. But since I was reared and educated in other studies—as it were in other pursuits and laws—and seem to be presumptuously laying hands on tasks not my own, it seems right that I should say a little about this too, setting before my speech a more fitting beginning.

2. There is an ancient precept, laid down thus by the man who first revealed philosophy to mankind: that all who look toward virtue and toward the honourable should make it their practice, in words, in deeds, in their dealings with others—in everything, in short, small and great, throughout life—to aim at the honourable in all things. And that virtue is the fairest of all things, who among men of sense would dispute with us? This, then, the precept bids those to hold fast who would not bear that name in vain, having appropriated nothing that does not belong to them. In laying down these rules the precept prescribes no single form of discourse, nor does it, as though from some tragic stage-machine, proclaim to those who hear that they must hasten toward virtue and flee from wickedness; rather it grants a man, if he wishes to imitate the nature of that first teacher, to use many roads to this end. For it allows good exhortation, the use of words that urge men on, the rebuking of faults with goodwill, the praising again of noble deeds, and the censure, when the occasion calls, of deeds that are otherwise. It permits a man, if he wishes, to use the other forms of discourse too for the best of purposes; and in everything, I think, both in word and deed, it commands him to remember that he will render account for whatever he chances to say, and to say nothing that he cannot refer back to virtue and philosophy. Such, then, are the precepts of that law, and others like them.

What, then, are we to do, hindered as we are by the appearance of making our eulogy out of favour—now that the whole genre of praise has, through those who pursue it wrongly, come to be terribly suspect, and is reckoned a kind of ignoble flattery rather than a true witness to the noblest deeds? Or is it clear that, trusting in the virtue of the man we praise, we shall give ourselves to his eulogy with confidence?

3. What, then, would be the finest beginning and arrangement of our discourse? Is it not plainly the virtue of your ancestors, through which it fell to you to be born what you are? Next, I think, it is fitting to make mention of your upbringing and education, which contributed most to the virtue you now possess; and after all this, to go through your deeds as the tokens of the virtues of your soul; and, putting the crown upon the discourse, to make plain those settled dispositions of character from which, setting out, you did and planned your noblest deeds. For in this, I think, my speech will differ from all the rest. The others stop at the deeds, supposing it enough for a perfect eulogy to make mention of these; but I think one must make the longest discourse about the virtues, since it was from these that you set out and came to so high a pitch of success. For most of your deeds—indeed nearly all—are brought to completion together with fortune, with bodyguards, with phalanxes of soldiers and squadrons of horse; but the works of virtue belong to the doer alone, and the praise that comes from them, being truly grounded, is the private possession of him who has won it. Now, then, since this has been clearly defined for us, I will begin my discourse.

4. The law of eulogy holds that one should make mention of a man's country no less than of his ancestors. But I do not know which I ought to suppose your country to be; for countless peoples have long disputed about this. The city that reigns over all, your mother and nurse, who together with good fortune bestowed the imperial power upon you, says that this is her own special privilege, and that she does not use the common rights that apply to all emperors. I mean that, even though others happen to come from elsewhere, they become citizens by sharing in her constitution and by using the customs and laws she has revealed to us; but not so with you—rather, as one who bore your mother and reared her in royal fashion and worthily of the descendants to be. The city upon the Bosphorus, which takes its name from the whole house of the Constantii, says that she is not your fatherland, but admits that she was founded by your father, and will think herself grievously wronged if anyone should rob her even of this kinship in our account. The Illyrians, because you were born among them, will not endure to be deprived of the fairest of their good fortunes, if anyone should assign you another fatherland. And I hear that some of the people of the East now say too that we do them wrong in taking from them the claim to you; for they say that it was their land that sent your grandmother forth to her marriage with your mother's father. And nearly all the rest, devising pretexts small or great, have resolved at all costs to make you their own. Let her, then, hold the privilege whom you yourself wish to have it—the one you have often, in your praise, called the mother and teacher of virtues—and let each of the others receive its due. For my part I should be willing to praise them all, since they are worthy of glory and honour; but I hesitate, lest by reason of its length—though it may seem very much in keeping with the present discourse—it should appear, given the occasion, foreign to it. The praises of the others, then, I think I shall let pass for this reason; but as for Rome, you yourself, O emperor, having gathered up the sum of her praises in brief and named her the teacher of virtue, by bestowing on her the fairest of eulogies, have taken away from others the power to speak of her. For what could we say of her so fine? What else has anyone to say? So that I think I rightly revere the city and honour her the more by this very thing—by yielding to you the praises addressed to her.

5. But about your noble birth it is perhaps worth going through briefly at the present moment. Yet here too I seem to be at a loss where I ought to begin. For your forefathers, your grandfathers, your parents, your brothers and cousins and kinsmen are all emperors, who either won the power lawfully in their own right or were adopted by those who held it. And why should one speak of ancient times, recalling Claudius, and offering clear proofs of his virtue, known to all—reminding men of the struggles against the barbarians who dwell beyond the Ister, and how he won his power piously and justly, and the simplicity of his manner of living while he reigned, and the plainness of his dress, still to be seen upon his statues? The deeds of your grandfathers are more recent than these, but no less brilliant. For both were judged worthy of the power on account of their virtue, and once they had come to the head of affairs, they were so well disposed toward one another and so loyal toward him who had given them a share of the empire, that he confessed he had never made a better plan, though he had devised many other measures for the public safety; while they prized their partnership with one another more than even the rule of the whole world, had that been possible for each man singly. Being so minded in their souls, they did the noblest of deeds: revering, after the higher Power, the man who had given them their power; treating their subjects gently and humanely; and not merely driving back the barbarians who had long dwelt upon our territory and grazed it as freely as their own, but, by building forts as bulwarks against them, they established for their subjects a peace so great that at that time it had not even seemed easy to pray for. But of these matters it is not fitting to speak in passing. Yet of their concord with one another it is by no means reasonable to leave out the greatest token, which moreover belongs to my discourse. For, having conceived the fairest of partnerships for their own children, they arranged the marriages of your parents. And I think it fitting to go through this too in brief, so that you may appear the heir not only of their power but also of their virtue.

6. How your father, after his own father's death, took up the kingship—both by that man's own choice and by the vote of all the armies—why need I now busy myself to inquire? His strength in war one would recognize from the deeds rather than from words. For it was in overthrowing usurpations, not lawful kingdoms, that he passed over the whole inhabited world. And he won such goodwill from his subjects that the soldiers, still mindful of his greatness of soul in his gifts and favours, continue to revere him like a god; while the multitude in the cities and in the countryside, praying not so much to be rid of the oppression of the usurpers as to be ruled by your father, prayed for his victory over them. When he had become master of all, since, as it were from a drought caused by the insatiable greed of the former ruler, there was a great scarcity of money, and the wealth of the realm had been driven into hidden corners, he removed the bar and at once flooded everything with riches; and he founded a city named after himself in less than ten whole years, greater than all the others by as much as it seems to fall short of Rome—and to be ranked second to her is, in my opinion, far better than to be reckoned first among all the rest. It is fitting perhaps here to make mention of renowned Athens, which he never ceased honouring all his life, in deeds and in words. For though he was emperor and master of all, he thought it worthwhile to be called her general, and on receiving such an image of himself with its inscription he rejoiced more than if he had been deemed worthy of the greatest honours. And in return for it he gave the city many thousands of bushels of grain to enjoy free of charge each year, by which the city had abundance, and he had praise and honour from the best of men.

7. Of the many fine deeds done by your father—those I have mentioned and those I think I am passing over for length—the best of all I myself would call, and I think all others would agree, your birth, upbringing, and education; from which it follows that all the rest enjoyed the best of governments not for a little while, but, as far as may be, for a longer time. At any rate, he seems to be reigning still. This Cyrus did not have; for after his death his son was seen to be far inferior, so that the one was called Father, while the other was nicknamed Master. But that you are gentler than your father, and clearly superior to him in many other respects, I well know, and I will show it in my discourse when the occasion appears. To him too I think this belongs, since he gave you a share in the best upbringing—of which I shall now try to speak, after first making mention of your mother and your brothers.

For your mother had such pre-eminence in noble birth, in beauty of body, and in excellence of character as one could not easily find in any other woman. For I hear too the tale told of Parysatis among the Persians, that she alone was at once the sister, mother, wife, and child of a king. But she was by nature the sister of her husband, and the law allowed a Persian to marry his sister. Your mother, however, keeping these relationships pure and unstained according to our laws, happened to be the child of one man, the wife of another, the sister of another, and the mother of many emperors—not of one only. Of these, one helped your father carry through the war against the usurpers; another, having prevailed by arms, secured for us a safe peace with the Getae; another kept the country untrodden by the enemy, himself marching against them often, until those who shortly after paid the penalty for their wrongs against him allowed it. And though those men had many illustrious deeds for which one might justly praise them, and a superabundance of the goods of fortune, there is nothing else of the kind for which one might reasonably congratulate and exalt them so much as this—that of some they were descendants, of others ancestors. But that I may not, by speaking too long about them, use up the time owed to your praises, I will hereafter try, in a manner worthy of us—or rather, if one must speak holding nothing back, I will show you to be far more august than your forefathers.

Reports and prophecies and visions in sleep, and all the other things men are wont to babble of in the case of those who have done such brilliant and conspicuous deeds—of Cyrus, and of the founder of our city, and of Alexander the son of Philip, and any other such man—I willingly let pass; for these seem not far removed from poetic license. And to speak of how brilliant and royal were the circumstances of your first birth would be naïve. But since the occasion has reminded me of your training as a boy, you doubtless needed the royal upbringing, which would train the body for strength, vigour, sound condition, and beauty, and prepare the soul harmoniously for courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. These things it is not easy to attain through a relaxed manner of life, which, as is likely, softens souls and bodies alike, and makes the mind weaker in the face of dangers and the body weaker for toils. Therefore for the body there was need of gymnastic training, while you adorned your soul with the study of letters. But about both it is worth speaking at greater length; for this proved to be a kind of beginning of your later deeds.

8. As for the care of bodily strength, you did not train for what is suited to display, judging it least of all to befit a king to have the much-vaunted fine condition of those who haunt the wrestling-schools, when he is to take part in real contests, and needs very little sleep and not much food—and that not at all fixed in quantity or quality, nor as to the time at which one ought to take it, but whatever offers, whenever affairs leave the occasion. Therefore you thought it right to make even your exercises serve this end—many of them military: the dance in arms, the race in arms, the art of horsemanship—all of which you have continued to practise from the first, in due season; and each of these has been brought to perfection by you as by no other man-at-arms. For of those others, one, being a good foot-soldier, was ignorant of the art of riding; another, knowing how to use cavalry skills, shrinks from going on foot into battle. But to you alone it belongs to appear the best of horsemen when equipped like them, and, when re-equipped as a foot-soldier, to surpass all in strength and speed and the lightness of your feet. And that your relaxations might not be idle, nor take place without arms, you practised shooting at a mark.

9. And while you prepared the body, through voluntary toils, to bear those that are involuntary, for the soul the leading thing was the study of letters and the lessons suited to that age. But that the soul might not be wholly untrained, nor hear the discourses about the virtues merely as songs and tales, while remaining for so long a time inexperienced of good deeds and actions—just as the noble Plato thought right, giving children, as it were, wings, and mounting them upon horses to lead them into battle, to be spectators of what they would soon have to be contestants in—your father, I would reasonably say, with this in mind set you, while still a youth, or rather quite a boy in years (though in understanding and strength already a match for fine and good men), as guardian and king over the nations of the Celts. That your experience of war might be free of danger, your father took good forethought, ordering the barbarians to keep peace toward our subjects; while by persuading them to fight and quarrel among themselves, he taught you the general's art in their misfortunes and at the cost of their bodies, planning more safely than the wise Plato. For according to Plato, if an enemy army should come on foot, the children would be spectators and partners of the deeds, helping their fathers if there were need; but if the enemy should prevail with cavalry, it would be time for the youths to contrive some hard-to-find means of safety. But to accustom children to face the enemy amid the dangers of others seems to have been planned sufficiently both for the need and for safety.

In these matters, then, you had your training toward courage. As for wisdom, the nature you were allotted is a sufficient guide; but there were present too, I think, the ablest of the citizens to teach you statecraft. And your dealings with the leaders of the barbarians there gave you experience of manners, laws, and foreign customs. Now Homer, choosing to show Odysseus shrewd in every way, calls him a man of many turns, who learned the minds of many men and visited their cities, so that, selecting the best from all of them, he might possess it, and be able to associate with men of every kind. But while he who was no king had need of experience in varied manners, one who was being reared for so great a sovereignty ought not to be taught in some little room, nor to mimic kingship in play, as Cyrus did, nor to transact business with his playmates, as they say of him; but to associate with nations and peoples, and to give to bodies of soldiers in plain terms what must be done; and, in short, to be left wanting in none of those things which a man, once grown, ought to do at his own discretion.

Therefore, when you had been well taught among these peoples, passing over to the other continent you were set, alone, against the nations of the Parthians and Medes. And as the war was already smouldering and not long after about to be fanned into flame, you quickly learned its character too, imitated the strength of their arms, and accustomed your body to endure the season of summer. I learn that Alcibiades alone of all the Greeks bore such changes so adaptably, so as to imitate first the self-control of the Lacedaemonians, when he had given himself to the Spartans; then the Thebans, and later the Thracians, and at last the luxury of the Persians. But he, changing his character along with his surroundings, was filled with much that was disagreeable, and ran the risk of casting off his native manner altogether; whereas you thought it right to hold everywhere to a temperate way of life, and, by accustoming your body to toils, you bore the journey up from Gaul to Parthia more easily than rich men who change their dwelling with the seasons do, when they are forced to it out of season. And it seems to me that some kindly god, wishing to prepare your virtue from the first for the sovereignty of the whole, led you round in a circle and showed you the bounds and limits of all the empire, the nature of its regions, the size of its lands, the strength of its nations, the multitude of its cities, the character of its peoples, and—best of all—the abundance of these very things, none of which ought to be wanting to one who is being reared for so great a rule.

10. But the greatest thing nearly escaped my saying: that, while being taught from childhood to rule over all these things, you learned the better lesson of being ruled, submitting yourself to the best and most just of all rule, by nature and by law. For you obeyed at once a father and a king; and if either of these alone had belonged to him, it would in any case have been fitting for him to rule you. And yet what royal upbringing and education better than this could one find to have existed in old times? For neither did the Lacedaemonians among the Greeks—who indeed are thought to have shared in the best form of rule, that of kings—so educate the Heraclidae; nor among the barbarians did the Carthaginians, who were governed by kings in a singular way, deem their future ruler worthy of the best care. Rather, the exercises of virtue and the lessons set by the laws were common to all, as though the citizens were brothers who would alike rule and be ruled, and there was no difference, as regards education, between the leaders and the rest. And yet how is it not naïve to demand an unsurpassable greatness of virtue from rulers, and to take no forethought how they shall be superior to the many? Among the barbarians, since this rule lies open to all in common, it might pardon their making the care of character the same for all; but Lycurgus, who kept the kingship unshaken for the descendants of Heracles yet found no superiority in the care of the young, one might very reasonably blame. For even if he thought all the Lacedaemonians should be athletes and nurslings of virtue, he ought not to have deemed the private citizens worthy of the same upbringing and education as those who would rule. For such a habit, creeping in little by little, breeds in souls a contempt for their betters; and indeed those who have not won the first place through virtue are not to be reckoned betters at all. This too, I think, often made the Spartans harder to be ruled by their kings. And one might use as clear proof of what I say the rivalry of Lysander with Agesilaus, and many other instances, by going through the deeds of those men.

But for them, while the constitution prepared them sufficiently for virtue, even though it gave them nothing to practise different from the many, it provided that they should be fine and good men. As for the Carthaginians, not even their common pursuits are worthy of praise. For parents would drive their children from their homes and order them to gain a livelihood through the toils necessary for need, while forbidding them to do anything held to be base. But the effect of this was not to root out desire from the young, but to bid them try to do something in secret. For it is natural that not luxury alone corrupts character, but also a life deficient in necessaries, in cases where reason has not yet acquired the power to judge and follows upon the bodily needs, persuaded by desire—especially if, besides not mastering that passion, one is from childhood accustomed to money-making, to certain exchanges of trade and shopkeeping, some found out by himself and some learned from those who know, things which it is not worthy even to mention, much less for a freeborn child to hear of, and which would lay very many stains upon the soul—stains of all of which even the decent citizen ought to be pure, let alone a king and general.

11. But it is not for me at present to censure those men; I will only show the difference of your upbringing, by which you came to excel in beauty, strength, justice, and temperance—gaining good bodily condition through toils, acquiring temperance through the laws, your body more robust through the self-control of your soul, and your soul again more just through the endurance of your body; ever increasing the goods of nature to the utmost, and ever taking on besides, from without, the goods that come from careful training. You needed nothing yourself, yet you supplied others and bestowed great gifts, gifts large enough to make those who received them like the lord of the Lydians—enjoying yourself a smaller portion of your existing goods than the most temperate of the Spartans, yet furnishing to others the means of luxury, and offering yourself for imitation to those who wished to be temperate; ruling the rest gently and humanely, while you continued all the while to be ruled by your father temperately and as one of the many. As a boy and a youth you had these qualities and many more, about which it would now be too long for the occasion to speak.

12. When you had come to the prime of life, and the destined end—a most blessed one, granted by the divine power—had come upon your father, you adorned his tomb not only by the multitude and beauty of the offerings, repaying the thanks owed for your birth and upbringing, but far more by the fact that, alone of all his children, you hastened to him while he still lived and was oppressed by sickness, and, when he had died, established the greatest honours, about which it is enough merely to make mention. For the deeds call us to themselves, reminding us of your strength, your stoutness of soul, your good counsel and your justice at once, in which you were seen to be unconquerable and unsurpassable—ordering your dealings toward your brothers, your fellow-citizens, your father's friends, and the armies justly and temperately (except where, compelled by circumstances, you did not, against your will, prevent others from doing wrong); and ordering your dealings toward the enemy bravely and magnificently and worthily of the glory of your house that had gone before. With the former you lived all the time in concord, keeping the city free of faction, ever cherishing your brothers as colleagues in rule, sharing with your friends equality of speech and frankness, along with your other goods, unstintingly—sharing all your possessions in common and giving to each whatever he seemed to lack. And as witnesses of these things one might reasonably use those men themselves, while events suffice to show, even to those who had no share in your company with them, the deliberate purpose of your whole life.

13. But now we must speak of the deeds themselves, deferring our account of your settled character. The Persians, having long ago gained mastery over all Asia and subdued most of Europe—I might almost say having encompassed the whole inhabited world in the circle of their hopes—when their empire had been taken from them by the Macedonians, and they had become the work, or rather the plaything, of Alexander's generalship, bearing servitude hard, as soon as they perceived that he had died, revolted from the successors, set themselves up again as a rival power to the Macedonians, and to us, who had won what remained of the Macedonian empire, seemed throughout to be enemies worth fighting. And of ancient matters, why need I now recall Antony and Crassus, generals with supreme command, and how through long perils we thrust off those disgraces, while many temperate emperors fought back against the reverses? Why should one make mention of the second misfortunes, and of the deeds of Carus that followed them, who was chosen general after the disasters? But those who imposed upon the Persians the keeping of that wonderful peace, beloved by all—those who held the kingship before your father—did not one of them, the Caesar, joining battle on his own, come off shamefully? And when the ruler of the whole inhabited world had turned his attention thither, had brought to that place the forces of the whole empire, and had occupied the passes beforehand with armies and levies of old soldiers and new recruits, and with preparations of every kind, then, frightened, they were barely content to welcome peace. This peace, somehow, while your father still lived, they confounded and threw into confusion; and they missed the punishment from him, since he ended his life amid his preparations for war; but to you they paid the penalty afterwards for what they had dared.

14. As I am about to touch upon the struggles you so often had against them, I ask my hearers only to consider this: that, although you were established as master of but the third part of the empire—and that part by no means thought to be strong for war, lacking arms, lacking soldiers to serve, lacking all the other things that ought to have flowed in unstintingly for so great a war; and besides this, with your brothers not lightening the war for you for any reason whatever (and there is no one so shameless, no slanderous calumniator, who will not say that you were chiefly responsible for the concord with them)—although, I think, the war was difficult in itself, the armies were thrown into confusion by the change of rule, crying out that they longed for their old commander, yet wishing to be ruled by you; and countless other strange and difficult things, springing up on every side, made the hopes concerning the war harder still: the Armenians, our old allies, in revolt, and no small part of them going over to the Persians, overrunning the neighbouring territory with bands of robbers. And the one thing that in the present circumstances seemed the only salvation—that you should take affairs in hand and deliberate—was for a while not possible, because of the agreements with your brothers in Paeonia, which, being present in person, you so managed as to give them no ground for complaint. The fairest beginning of your deeds nearly escaped me, slipping by—a beginning fairer than all the rest, or at least as admirable as the fairest. For that one who is deliberating about such great affairs should seem to suffer no loss, if he willingly concede to his brothers the larger share, would be the greatest sign of temperance and greatness of soul. As it is, if a man dividing his father's estate among his brothers—an estate, let us say, of a hundred talents, or, if you like, of as many more—then, content with fifty minae less, had exchanged for that small sum his concord with them, he would be thought worthy of praise and honour as superior to money, as naturally well-counselled—in a word, as a fine and good man. But one who, concerning the rule of the whole, has plainly deliberated so magnanimously and temperately that he did not lay upon himself the greater toil of administration, yet willingly gave up the revenues of the empire for the sake of concord and the peace of all the Romans with one another—of how much praise will anyone judge him worthy? Nor indeed can it be said here, "Nobly, yes, but unprofitably"; for nothing is profitable, to my mind, that is not at the same time honourable. And in general, if anyone thinks that advantage should be examined by itself, let him judge not by looking to money, nor by counting up the revenues of estates, like the money-loving old men dragged onto the stage by the comic poets, but by looking to the magnitude of the empire and its dignity. For if he had been contentious about the boundaries and hostile, he would have ruled over those alone that fell to him, even if he came away with more; but by overlooking small things and despising them, he ruled the whole inhabited world together with his brothers, while caring for the portion allotted to him—enjoying the honour entire, yet sharing less of the toils that go with it.

15. But about these matters it will be possible to speak again at greater length. How you took affairs in hand, with so many dangers standing round you on every side after your father's death, and troubles of every kind—uproar, a war forced upon you, much harrying of the land, the revolt of allies, the disorder of the armies, and all the other difficulties that then beset you—it is perhaps worth going through now. For when the matter of the agreements had been settled by you with the best of concord, and the moment was at hand that bade you bring aid to affairs in peril, by swift marches—how, from being among the Paeonians, you appeared among the Syrians, it is not easy even to set forth in words; but the experience suffices for those who knew it. And how, at your coming, everything all at once changed and shifted for the better, and not only delivered us from the fears that hung over us but furnished far better hopes for the future—who of all men could suffice to tell? The disorder of the armies ceased the moment you came near, and gave way to good order; those of the Armenians who had gone over to the enemy immediately changed back, when you had led off to us the authors of the desertion, along with the ruler of that country, and provided for the fugitives a safe return to their own land. And so humanely did you treat both those who had just come over to us and those who had come back from exile with their ruler, that some lamented their own earlier defection, while others prized their present fortune above their former power; and the former fugitives said they had learned in deed to be temperate, while the latter said they had received a recompense worthy of not having gone over. And you used such an extravagance of gifts and honour toward those who returned that not even their bitterest enemies, on seeing them prosper and duly honoured, were vexed or envious. Having settled these matters in brief, and having turned the robbers from Arabia against the enemy by embassies, you came to the preparations for the war—about which it is no worse to say a few words beforehand.

16. For whereas the former peace had relaxed the toils of the soldiers and had made the public services lighter for those who performed them, while the war required money, provisions, and brilliant supplies—and far more, strength and vigour and experience in arms among the soldiers—and almost none of these existed, you yourself found them and established them, appointing for those of military age the practice of toils, organizing a cavalry force equal to the enemy's, and ordering the infantry to hold to their labours; and this not by words only nor by command, but by training and exercising yourself, and showing in deed what must be done, you suddenly made craftsmen of war. You devised resources of money, not by increasing the tributes or the levies—as the Athenians did of old, raising them to double or even more—but, I think, by keeping to the old rates, except where now and then, for a short time and for the occasion, it was necessary to feel the burden of more costly services. And in such abundance did you keep the soldiers that they were neither led by surfeit into insolence nor compelled by want to do wrong. As for the provision of arms and horses, of river-boats and engines, and of all the rest in its multitude, I pass over in silence.

17. When the preparations were complete and it was time to use what had been provided for the need, the Tigris was often bridged with a pontoon, and forts were raised upon it, and none of the enemy dared defend the country that was being ravaged; all their goods were brought over to us, since some did not even dare come to blows, while those who grew bold paid the penalty on the spot. Such, then, is the sum of the invasions into enemy territory. For who could worthily go through each of them in a brief account, reckoning up the disasters of the one side and the deeds of valour of the other? But perhaps this much is not hard to say: that often, having crossed that river with your army and spent much time in enemy country, you returned in splendour with your trophies, visiting the cities set free by you, bestowing peace and wealth, all good things at once, and giving men to enjoy what they had long longed for—victory over the barbarians, trophies raised over the faithlessness and cowardice of the Parthians—of which they displayed the one by breaking the treaty and confounding the peace, and the other by not daring to defend their land and their dearest possessions.

18. But lest anyone suppose that I make mention gladly of these deeds while shrinking from those in which fortune—or rather the terrain, which took on at that moment its decisive weight—granted the enemy an advantage over us, as though they brought us disgrace and not praise and honour, I will try to set forth these too in brief, not shaping my words to my own greatest advantage, but cherishing the truth in all things. If anyone willingly errs from the truth, he by no means escapes the disgrace that comes of flattering, and he adds to those he praises the appearance of not deserving even what good is said of them in other matters; which I shall be careful not to suffer. The discourse itself will show whether I have anywhere honoured falsehood above truth. Now I know well that all men would call the war before Singara the greatest advantage the barbarians ever gained. But I would reasonably say that that battle brought misfortunes equally upon both armies, and showed your virtue prevailing over their fortune—and this when you were using an army that was bold and daring, yet not, like them, accustomed to the season and to the strength of the stifling heat. How each thing was done, I will relate.

19. It was the height of summer still, and the armies met at the same place long before midday. The enemy, struck with amazement at our good order, our discipline, and our quietness—while they themselves appeared wonderful in their numbers—neither side began the battle: ours hesitating to come to blows against a force so well prepared, the enemy waiting for ours to begin, so that in everything they might appear to be defending themselves rather than themselves beginning a war after the peace. At last the leader of that barbarian host, raised aloft above the shields and observing our multitude in its ranks—what a man he became from what he had been, and what cries he uttered! Shouting that he had been betrayed, and blaming those who had persuaded to the war, he thought he must flee with all speed, and that this alone would suffice for his safety: if he could cross the river first—which is the ancient boundary of that country toward ours. With this in mind, he first signalled a retreat step by step, and, gradually adding to his speed, at last fled in earnest, having a few horsemen about him, and entrusting the whole force to his son and to the most faithful of his friends to lead. Seeing this, our army, and angry that they had paid no penalty for what they had dared, shouted to be led against them; and, vexed at your bidding them stay, they ran with their arms, each as he had strength and speed, being themselves as yet inexperienced of your generalship, and, looking to your age, trusting less that you judged their advantage better than they themselves did. And the fact that they had fought through many battles with your father and prevailed everywhere helped to make them seem invincible. No less than all this, the present dread of the Parthians spurred them on, as though they would surely master not the men alone but the very country, and anything greater that might fall upon them from without. So, quickly running the hundred stades between, they came upon the Parthians, who had fled for refuge into the rampart they had earlier made for themselves like a camp. It was evening now, and the battle was joined there at once. They took the rampart immediately, slaying those who held it; and, once inside the defences, they fought valiantly for a long time, but, overcome at last by thirst, and finding cisterns of water within, they ruined the fairest of victories and gave the enemy the chance to fight back from their defeat.

20. Such was the end of that battle: it took from us three or four, but from the Parthians it destroyed along with them the heir being reared for the kingship—who had been taken prisoner before—and a host of those about him. While all this was being done, the leader of the barbarians was not present even in a dream; for he did not check his flight until he had put the river behind him. But you remained under arms through the whole day and the whole night, sharing in the victory with those who prevailed in the contests, and bringing swift help to those who toiled. By your courage and stoutness of soul you so turned the contest that they were glad, when day overtook them, to make their escape to their own land, and to withdraw from the battle, with you following, even their wounded—so thoroughly did you relax in all of them the terror of flight. What fort, then, was taken? What city was besieged? What baggage did the enemy take and hold, for which they might give themselves airs after the war?

But perhaps someone will say: to come away never having the worse of the enemy is to be reckoned fortunate and happy, but to stand against fortune is more vigorous and a sign of greater virtue.

For what good pilot steers his ship in fair weather, when an exact calm holds the sea? What skilful charioteer, having yoked obedient, gentle, and swift horses on level and smooth ground, then displays his art among them? How much better is the steersman who has foreseen and sensed the coming storm beforehand, and has tried to avoid it, but then, for whatever cause, has fallen into it and brought the ship through unharmed, cargo and all? And the charioteer who contends against the roughness of the ground, shifting his horses and at the same time forcing them, if they go at all amiss? In general it is not right to examine any art together with fortune, but to consider it by itself. Cleon is no better a general than Nicias because he had good fortune at Pylos; nor is any other of those who prevail by fortune rather than by judgement. And I, if I should not say that your fortune too is better and more just than that of those who opposed you—or rather, that it is the best of all men's—should reasonably seem to do wrong, since it did not allow the enemy to perceive their advantage. For one who would judge justly of what has been said must, I think, reckon the loss to the unconquerable strength of the stifling heat; must suppose it the work of your virtue that the enemy were brought level with us through their misfortunes; and must reckon it the work of good fortune that they felt their own losses but were ignorant of our successes.

21. But lest, by speaking too long about these things, I use up the time for greater matters, I will now try to go through the multitude of affairs that beset us after this, and the magnitude of the dangers, and how, withstanding everything, you put down a multitude of usurpers and turned back the forces of the barbarians. For the winter was already drawing to its close, about the sixth year after the war I mentioned a little before, when someone came announcing that Gaul, having revolted along with the usurper, had plotted and carried out the murder of your brother; then that Italy and Sicily had been seized; and that the armies in Illyricum were in a state of turmoil and had proclaimed as their king their former general, who wished to hold out against the seemingly irresistible onset of the usurpers. And this very man begged you to send money and a relieving force, being greatly afraid and trembling for himself, lest he be overpowered by the usurpers. For a while he promised to do what was fitting, by no means deeming himself worthy of the rule, but professing, I think, to provide a faithful steward and guardian; yet he was soon to be shown faithless and to pay the penalty—though a humane one. Learning this, you did not think it right to waste the time in much ease to no purpose. Rather, having filled the cities of Syria with engines, garrisons, grain, and the rest of the supplies, you expected, even in your absence, to be enough for the people there, while you yourself resolved to set out against the usurpers.

22. But the Persians, watching for this moment ever since, intending to take Syria at the first onset, raised up every age and sex and condition and rushed against us—men, youths, old men, and a multitude of women and servants—not only for the services needed in the war, but a vast crowd following out of abundance. For they thought that they would both hold the cities and, having already mastered the land, bring in settlers among us. But the magnitude of your preparation showed their expectations to be empty. For when they set themselves to a siege, the city was walled about with siege-mounds, and the Mygdonius flowed over the ground around the wall, flooding it like the Nile, they say, over Egypt; engines were brought up against the battlements on boats, and some planned to sail against the walls, while others hurled missiles from the mounds at those defending the city. But the defenders fought stoutly for the city from the walls. Everything was full of corpses and wreckage, of arms and missiles—some just sinking, others, after they had first been driven down by force and sunk, lifted again by the waves. The shields of the barbarians floated everywhere in great numbers, and the decks of ships shattered by the engines upon them. A multitude of missiles, floating, almost filled the whole space between the wall and the mounds. The lake was turned to gore, and round the wall echoed the wailing of barbarians who slew no one but perished in many ways and were wounded with varied wounds.

Who could worthily relate what was done? Fire was hurled upon the shields, and many of the men-at-arms fell out half-burnt, while others, fleeing the flame, did not escape the danger from the missiles; some, still swimming, wounded in the back, sank to the depths, while others, leaping from the engines before they touched the water, were struck and found not safety but an easier death. And those who did not even know how to swim, perishing more ingloriously than the rest—who would think them worthy of count or memory? Time would fail me if I wished to go through each detail; it is enough to hear the sum. This was a battle the sun looked upon, unknown to men in former time; this exposed the ancient boasting of the Medes for the empty conceit it was; this, when the magnitude of Xerxes' preparation had hitherto been disbelieved, made it more plainly known to us than things that seem familiar—if so great a force came to an end so shameful and reproachful. For he tried to sail and to march on foot, fighting against nature, and, as he supposed, mastering the nature of land and sea, was defeated by the wisdom of a Greek man and the strength of soldiers who had practised not luxury nor servitude, but knew how to be ruled in freedom and to toil. The Persian king, inferior to Xerxes in his preparations, but more reckless and surpassing the Aloadae in madness—all but resolved to bury the city under the neighbouring mountain, letting loose rivers' streams and dissolving the walls—yet, though he did not even prevail over the city when its wall was down, he had nothing for which to give himself airs, as Xerxes did when he flung flame upon Athens. He returned, having spent four months' time, leading back his army diminished by many myriads, and the man who had seemed before intolerable was content with quiet, putting your preoccupation and the confusion of our affairs forward as a bulwark of his own safety.

Leaving behind these trophies and victories in Asia, you led your army, fresh and unwearied, into Europe, resolved to fill the whole inhabited world with trophies.

23. But for me what has been said before is enough, even if I had nothing more august to say of you, to show you mastering, by understanding and strength, all who before you shared the same fortune as you. For to thrust off the power of the Persians without loss—giving up no city, no fort, not even a soldier of the levy—and to set upon a siege a brilliant end, such as we had never heard of before, to what of former deeds should one compare it? Famous is the daring of the Carthaginians in dangers, but it ended in disasters; brilliant were the events of the siege of Plataea, but the wretched men used their misfortunes more famously. Why should one make mention of Messene and Pylos, who neither fought stoutly nor were taken by force? And the Syracusans, who set that wise general against the preparations of our city and against its fine and good general—what more did they gain? Were they not taken more shamefully than the rest, and saved only as a fair memorial of the gentleness of those who took them? But if I wished to enumerate all the cities that did not hold out against weaker preparations, how many books do you think would suffice me? Of Rome perhaps it is worth making mention, who once long ago met with such a fortune—when the Gauls, I think, and the Celts blew together in one and were borne against her like a sudden torrent. For they seized that hill where the image of Zeus is set up; but, fencing themselves with wicker-work and such things as with a wall, since the enemy, busy though they were, dared not approach by force, the Romans prevailed.

To this siege it is worth comparing the one lately ended, as regards the issue of fortune—since in its deeds it can be compared to none of all those that have ever been. For who has known of a city encircled by waters, hemmed in from without by hills as by nets, and a river let loose like an engine, flowing continually and dashing against the walls, and the battles over the waters and all those that took place around the wall when it had fallen?

24. For me, then, as I said, even these things suffice; but what remains is far more august. And perhaps it is by no means reasonable, once one has chosen to make mention, so far as he can, of all you have done, to abandon the narrative while the deeds are still at their height. How much, then, while still occupied with those deeds I just mentioned, you ordered in Europe—sending embassies, spending money, and dispatching the armies stationed against the Scythians in Paeonia, taking forethought lest the old man be overpowered by the usurper—how could one set this forth in a brief account, however eager he were?

But when, as you were already setting out for the war, he who had professed to remain a faithful guardian—deprived of his mind and senses, I know not by what spirit—he who had been preserved by you with money, armies, and all else, made peace with the most unholy of all men, the common enemy of all who care for peace and cherish concord above everything, and your own enemy beyond all others; you neither feared the magnitude of his preparation, nor supposed that the alliance of faithless men outweighed sound judgement. Reproaching, as was fitting, the one for faithlessness and the other, besides this, for the daring of impious and lawless deeds, you summoned the one to trial and judgement before the armies, while you supposed the war itself to be the judge of the other.

25. But when first that fine and shrewd old man came to meet you—changing his resolutions more easily than any little child, and forgetful, once the need was past, of the good he had received; and he came bringing phalanxes of men-at-arms and squadrons of horse, so that, if he could not persuade, he might force you to go back again the same way, having accomplished nothing—you, no whit dismayed that you saw your professed ally and general now an enemy wishing to rule on equal terms, and although inferior in the number of your forces (since not all followed you), judged it perhaps bold, but in any case perilous, to contend against one superior in numbers—even if you won the battle—on account of the savage usurper lying in wait for his opportunities and for events; and so you deliberated well, wishing the success to be yours alone, and you came forward to the tribunal with him who was for the time your colleague. There gathered a host of men-at-arms gleaming with arms, holding out their naked swords and spears—to a coward a fearful and dreadful sight, but to the brave and bold, and to such a man as you have shown yourself, a noble help. When, then, you first began to speak, silence held them, all eager to listen; tears flowed from many, and they stretched their hands toward heaven, doing this too in silence, that none might perceive it. Some showed their goodwill even by their looks, but all by their eagerness to hear your words. As the speech reached its height, they all, sharing the inspiration of your discourse, applauded; then again, longing to hear, they grew still. At last, persuaded by your words, they called you alone king, deemed you alone worthy to rule over all, bade you lead them against the enemy, promised to follow, and demanded that you take back the tokens of rule. But you did not think it right even to put forth your hand or to take them by force; and he, unwilling and with difficulty, yet yielding at last, as they say, to Thessalian persuasion-by-force, stripped off the purple and presented it to you.

26. What a man you showed yourself there—become in a single day master of so many nations and armies and treasures, and having stripped of his rule, and mastered the person of, the enemy who had appeared such, if not in deed, yet in intention!

Did you not deal with him better and more justly than Cyrus dealt with his grandfather, while you preserved their honours to those about him, taking nothing from anyone, and adding, I think, gifts to many? And who saw you either too downcast before your victory or too elated after it? And yet how can it be worth our while to praise you, calling you at once popular orator and general, or good king and noble man-at-arms? You who long ago thought it right to bring the office of general, which had been torn from the tribunal, back to one and the same form—imitating, I think, Odysseus and Nestor, and the Roman generals who destroyed Carthage, who made themselves more fearful from the tribunal to wrongdoers than to the enemy when drawn up for battle. As for Demosthenes and whoever has emulated him, while I revere his power in words, I would never deem the audiences of those men worthy to compare with the manner of your public speaking. For they did not address men-at-arms, nor while risking so much, but spoke for money or honour or glory, or having promised to plead for friends; and they came away often, I think, from the platform, when the people had raised an uproar, pale and trembling, like cowardly generals drawn up in sight of the enemy. And no one could say that so great a deed was ever done by another, the winning of so many nations from a court of justice—especially when the case was against a man not, as most say, contemptible, but known through many campaigns, already an old man and thought to have gained experience from time, and one who had been appointed to command those armies for a long while already. What, then, was the strength of your words? What the persuasion seated upon your lips, which had power, when men of every kind had gathered, to leave its sting in their souls, and to provide a victory equal in magnitude to those won by arms, yet pure and unstained—the work, as it were, of a priest going in to a god, not of a king going to war? And yet of this deed the Persians too tell a tale that falls far short—that the sons of Darius, when their father died, in their dispute over the rule, committed their case to a trial and not to the judgement of arms. But you had no contest, not one, with your brothers, either in words or in deeds; rather you rejoiced, I think, that your care of affairs was shared with them, more than if you had become sole master of all; while against the one who had done nothing impious or lawless, but had shown himself faithless in intention, you had recourse to proofs that would display his faithlessness.

27. This public address was succeeded by a brilliant campaign and a sacred war—not over a sacred place, like the Phocian war we hear arose in former times, but over the laws and the constitution and the murder of countless citizens, some of whom he had slain, others he had intended, others he had set about arresting—fearing, I think, lest someone suppose him a wicked citizen and not a barbarian by nature. For the wrongs against your house, being in no way less than those publicly dared by him, you thought right to deem worthy of less concern; so much did the common good seem to you, and still seems, more precious than your private interests.

Should one, then, make mention of all the wrongs he did both to the state and in private—having slain his own master (for he was a slave of that man's ancestors, an ill-starred remnant preserved from the spoils taken from the Germans); and attempting to rule over us, he to whom it was not even fitting to be reckoned free, not having received this from you; and how, binding and slaying those in the army, and basely enslaving himself to the multitude and flattering them, he destroyed good order; and how he laid down those fine laws of his, that men should pay in half their property, threatening death to the disobedient, and that any of the household slaves who wished might be informers; and how he compelled those who had no need to buy the royal possessions? Time would fail me in recounting his wrongs and the magnitude of the tyranny that had seized power. But the strength of the preparation for war, which he had laid down against the barbarians but used against us—who could worthily set it forth?

28. The Celts and Gauls, peoples that seemed even to the men of old hard to fight against, who often poured down like an irresistible torrent upon the Italians and Illyrians, and had even touched Asia by their victories in armed contests, became our subjects against their will; they are enrolled in the levies of the armies and furnish brilliant taxes, levied by your forefathers and your father. Enjoying a long peace and its blessings, with their country increasing in wealth and in fine manhood, they furnished many soldiers to your brothers also; and at last, by force and not of their own resolve, they marched in full strength with the usurper. There followed him, by reason of kinship, the most eager of allies, the Franks and Saxons, the most warlike of the nations beyond the Rhine and about the western sea. And every city and fort neighbouring the Rhine, stripped of the guards who dwelt there, was all betrayed undefended to the barbarians, while the army was sent against us brilliantly equipped; every Gallic city seemed like a camp made ready for war, and all was full of arms and preparation of cavalry and infantry, of archers and javelin-men. As his allies streamed together into Italy from every quarter, and joined the soldiers long since levied there, no one appeared so bold that he did not fear and was not dismayed at the coming storm. A thunderbolt it seemed to all, that was borne from the Alps—a thunderbolt unbearable in deed and unspeakable in word. This the Illyrians and Paeonians and Thracians and Scythians feared; this the men who dwell in Asia supposed to be rushing wholly upon themselves; against this the Persians too were now preparing to make war for their own sake. But he reckoned present matters small, and that it would be no great toil to master your understanding and strength, and looked to the riches of the Indians and the extravagance of the Persians—so far did his folly and recklessness go, arising from one wholly small advantage over the scouts, whom he ambushed unguarded with his whole army and slew. So has faring well beyond one's deserts often become, for fools, the beginning of greater misfortunes. For the wretch, lifted up and made giddy by this good fortune, abandoned the strong places of Italy lying before him and went unguardedly into Noricum and Paeonia, thinking he needed speed and not arms or courage.

29. Perceiving this, you led your army back from the difficult ground, and he followed, supposing he was pursuing and not being outgeneralled, until you both reached the open country. When the plains before Mursa came into view, the cavalry were arrayed on each wing, with the infantry in the centre; and you yourself, O emperor, keeping the river on your right, outflanked the enemy with your left, and at once turned them and broke up the phalanx, which had not even at the outset been rightly put together, since a man inexperienced in wars and generalship had arranged it. He, supposing all the while that he was pursuing, without even coming to blows, fled in earnest, dismayed by the clash of arms, not enduring to hear without fear even the war-paean of the armies as they raised their shout. When the line was broken, his soldiers, rallying again by companies, joined the contest, ashamed to be seen fleeing and to display in themselves what was incredible to all men—a Celtic soldier, a soldier from Gaul, showing his back to the enemy. And the barbarians, despairing of return if they faltered, deemed it right either to conquer or to die after doing the enemy some grievous harm. So great was the daring of those with the usurper in the face of dangers, and so great their eagerness to close hand to hand.

But your men, who had mastered all, ashamed before one another and before their king, and goaded on by their former successes and by the brilliant deeds at hand, hitherto incredible, eager to set upon their earlier achievements an end worthy of them, endured gladly every toil and danger. And so, as though the battle were just beginning, closing again, they displayed deeds of daring and of noble spirit—some thrusting amid the swords, others seizing the shields, and those horsemen whom their wounded horses threw off transferring themselves to the ranks of the men-at-arms. These things those with the usurper did, bearing down upon the infantry; and the battle was even, until the cuirassiers and the rest of the multitude of cavalry, some shooting with bows, others driving on their horses, slew many and pursued all stoutly—some, who had set out to flee toward the plain, of whom night barely saved a few; the rest were swept down into the river, driven together like a herd of oxen or cattle.

30. So much did that army gain in vain from the cowardice of the usurper, who profited nothing from his own courage.

You set up a trophy for the victory more brilliant than your father's. For he, leading those who had seemed till then invincible, prevailed over an ill-starred old man; but you brought to its knees a tyranny in its prime and at its height—strong not only through the evils he did but still more through its youth—by drawing up against it the armies you yourself had prepared. For who can name a former emperor who devised and copied such a cavalry force and such an equipment of arms? In this you yourself, having first trained, became a teacher to others in the use of invincible arms. Of these many have ventured to speak and fallen short of their worth, so that those who, having heard the accounts, were afterward fortunate enough to see, recognized clearly that the ears are less to be trusted than the eyes. For you led an infinite multitude of horsemen, like statues borne upon horses, their limbs fitted together in imitation of the human form: from the wrists to the elbows, and thence to the shoulders, and the cuirass joined of sections over the breast and the back, and the helmet of iron set upon the very face presents the appearance of a bright and gleaming statue, since not even shins and thighs and the tips of the feet are left bare of this equipment. And, joined to the cuirasses by a kind of woven mesh made of fine chain, no part of the body would be seen naked, since the hands too are covered by this mesh, so as to follow the fingers even as they bend. This my discourse desires to set forth clearly, but, falling short, it deems those who wish to learn anything further worthy to become spectators of the arms, rather than hearers of an account of them.

31. But now that we have gone through the first war, with the autumn already ending, shall we here again break off the narrative? Or is it altogether worth giving to those who long for it the end of the deeds? Winter set in and let the usurper escape his punishment. But proclamations were issued, brilliant and worthy of royal greatness of soul; amnesty was granted to all who had taken the usurper's side, except any who had shared in his unholy murders; all received back their homes and possessions and fatherlands—men who had not even hoped to see again any of what was dearest to them. You received the fleet returning from Italy, bringing back from there many citizens fleeing, I think, the cruelty of the usurpers. And when the season called for campaigning, you stood again, terrible, over the usurper. But he put forward the difficult terrain of Italy and, hiding his forces in the mountains there like a wild beast, did not even dare to campaign in the open. Withdrawing into the neighbouring city, luxurious and costly, he wore away the time in festivals and luxuries, thinking that the difficulty of the mountains alone would suffice for his safety. Being licentious by nature, he thought it a gain to indulge his desires amid so many evils, and was plainly all too confident that his present state was securely his, with Italy walled about by the mountains in a circle, except where, on the one side, the sea, being shallow and like the marshes of the Egyptians, makes the country impassable even to an enemy's naval force. But it seems that nature has contrived no single bulwark against a man's virtue and temperance for the licentious and cowardly, but makes all things yield to wisdom advancing with courage; and long ago she found out for us the arts by which we came to abundance in things once thought beyond resource, and in every individual task what seems to many impossible is brought to completion by a temperate man. This you too then showed in deeds, O emperor, and might reasonably accept the praises offered for it.

32. For you yourself campaigned in the open, and that with no mean city near at hand, while you laid upon your soldiers the toil and danger not by command, but by exhorting them through your own deeds. You found out a path unknown to all; you sent a portion of your whole force, men-at-arms equal to the task; then, when you knew for certain that they were upon the enemy, you yourself took up and led the army, and, encompassing them in a circle, mastered them all. This was done before dawn, but was announced before midday to the usurper, who was sitting at horse-races and a festival and expecting nothing of what was happening. What he then became from what he had been, and what mind he had concerning the present, and how he abandoned and fled the city and all Italy, purging himself of the murders and the former wrongs, it would not belong to the present discourse to relate. He would, had he gained a brief respite, have done nothing less than before; so true is it that an unholy man has found no purgation, through the body, for the wickedness of his soul. For when this excellent and lawful ruler came into Gaul, he became so much harsher than the other that, if any cruellest manner of punishment had earlier escaped him unawares, he found it out and, as a sight pleasing to himself, made a spectacle of the misfortunes of the wretched citizens: binding men alive to a chariot and letting them go, he would bid the charioteers drag them along, while he himself stood by and watched what was done; and amusing himself with other such things, he passed all his time, until you, throwing him down like an Olympic victor at the third fall, compelled him to inflict on himself a punishment worthy of what he had dared, driving through his own breast the very sword that he had stained with the murder of many citizens. Than this victory I declare none ever was better or more just, nor any in which the common race of men more rejoiced—released as it was from so great a cruelty and bitterness, truly set free, and now exulting in good government, which we still enjoy and may enjoy yet longer, O Providence good in all things.

33. To me, who long to go through all you have done, but fall short, you will reasonably grant pardon, O greatest of emperors, if I make no mention of the expeditions against Carthage, prepared from Egypt and sailing against it from Italy; nor of how you mastered the Pyrenees mountains by sending an army against them in ships; nor of the deeds you have lately and often done against the barbarians; nor if any other such ancient deed has escaped the notice of the many. For I hear that the city of Antioch often names itself after you. It bears, indeed, the name of its founder, but it has now grown rich and increased to every kind of abundance through you, who provided harbours with good anchorage for those who put in there; whereas before it seemed neither safe nor without danger even to sail past, so full was all this sea, near the shores, of certain reefs and submerged rocks. As for the colonnades and fountains and all such things made by the prefects through you, it is not even worth naming them. But how many things you have added to your father's city—throwing a wall about it in a circle, begun then, and committing to immortal safety those of its buildings that seemed not to stand securely—who could enumerate? Time would fail me in relating each of these.

34. But it is now worth considering, over all that has been said, whether everything was done with virtue and the best disposition of character; for to this I asked, even at the beginning of my discourse, that one give especial heed. Now, that you behaved toward your father piously and humanely, and continued all the time in concord with your brothers—obeying eagerly, and ruling alongside them temperately—has been said before and now too deserves remembrance. And whoever supposed this the work of small virtue, let him praise it while considering Alexander the son of Philip and Cyrus the son of Cambyses. For the one, while still quite a young man, plainly would not endure his father ruling; the other took the rule from his grandfather. And no one is so foolish as not to think that you, in no way inferior to those men in greatness of soul and in zeal for noble things, behaved so self-controlledly and temperately toward your father and your brothers. For when fortune offered the moment in which you ought to lay claim to the sovereignty over all, you were the first to set out, though many forbade you and tried to persuade you to the contrary; and, having most easily and safely managed the war on your hands, you resolved to free the parts of the empire that had been seized, making for your enmity against those men the most just pretext that war ever had—and such as it never had before. For it is not even right to call that war a civil war, of which the leader was a barbarian who had proclaimed himself king and made himself general. As for his wrongs and what he did to your house, it is not pleasant for me to recall them often. But what deed could one name braver than this? In it the danger, had you failed, was plain; yet you endured it for no gain, nor in exchange for everlasting glory—for which good men often dare even to die, as though selling their lives for renown as for money—nor indeed out of desire for a greater and more brilliant rule, since not even as a young man did it befall you to desire such things; but, loving the very nobility of the deed, you thought you must endure everything rather than see a barbarian reigning over Romans, and master of the laws, and set over the constitution, and making the prayers for the common good—he who was guilty of so many impieties and murders.

35. As for the brilliance of the preparation itself and the magnitude of the expenditures, whom would they not suffice to astonish? And yet I hear that Xerxes, who raised Asia against the Greeks, spent no less than ten years preparing for that war, and then brought against them, besides his thousand triremes, two hundred more—from these very regions, I think, from which you, in not even ten whole months building ships, raised your fleet, surpassing him in the multitude of ships; while in fortune and in deeds it is not even worth comparing him with you.

The magnificence of your other expenditures it might be too great a task to set forth; nor will I now trouble you by enumerating how much you restored to cities long despoiled. For all of them are rich through you that were before in want even of necessaries, and each man increases his private household through the common prosperity of the cities. But it is worth making mention of your gifts to private men, naming you a liberal and munificent king—you who, when many had long been deprived of their own possessions, the patrimony having met with disaster justly and unjustly, as soon as you became master, restored to some, like a good judge, the power over their own property by correcting the errors of your predecessors; while to others, becoming a fair-minded arbiter, you bestowed again the very things of which they had been deprived, thinking the length of time sufficient as punishment for those who had suffered. And how much, giving from your own means, you made many men richer than those of old who were thought to pride themselves on abundance of money—why should I now, by recalling it, seem to dwell on small matters? Especially as it is plain to all that no king ever, save Alexander the son of Philip, was seen to distribute so much to his own friends. But to others the wealth of their friends seemed more suspect and more fearful than the strength of their enemies; and others, regarding with suspicion the noble birth of their subjects, by maltreating in every way the well-born or even utterly destroying them, made themselves the chief authors of disasters to the cities in common and of unholy deeds to themselves in private. And some did not even refrain from envying the goods of the body—health, I mean, and beauty, and good condition; and they could not even endure to hear that virtue of soul existed in any of the citizens, but this was a crime, like murder and theft and treason: to seem to lay claim to virtue. And these, perhaps, one would truly say are not the deeds and acts of kings, but of wicked and ungenerous tyrants. But that other affliction, which laid hold not only of fools but of some decent and gentle men too—to be vexed at friends who had more, and often to wish to diminish them and rob them even of their due—who has dared to charge against you?

36. This they say Cyrus the Persian too, being the king's son-in-law, suffered from his father-in-law, who was vexed at the honour paid by the multitude to the man; and Agesilaus too was plainly vexed at Lysander, who was honoured among the Ionians.

Surpassing all these, then, in virtue, you established for the rich the possession of their wealth more securely than a father for his own children; and you take forethought for the noble birth of your subjects like the founder and lawgiver of every city; and, adding much to the goods of fortune and yourself freely bestowing much from the first, you plainly surpass the gifts of kings in magnitude, while by the security of what is once given you put in the shade the favours of popular assemblies. And this, I think, happens very reasonably. For some, on account of the goods they are conscious of lacking, envy those who possess them; but he whose gifts of fortune are brilliant and such as no other man's, while his gifts of deliberate choice are far more august than those of fortune, has nothing for which, being in need, he should grudge the possessor. And this, knowing it to belong to you most of all men, you rejoice at the goods of others, and the successes of your subjects gladden you; and you have bestowed honours upon them—some already, others you are about to, and concerning some you are deliberating; nor does it suffice you to distribute among your friends the rule of one city or one nation or even of many at once, and the honours that go with them; but, unless you should also choose a partner in the kingship—for which you endured so great toil and destroyed the race of usurpers—you supposed you had done nothing worthy of your own successes. And that you came to this resolve out of joy in giving rather than out of need, has become known, I think, to all. For you did not choose a partner in the struggles against the usurpers, but deemed worthy of a share in the honour the one who had no share in the toils—only when nothing fearful seemed to remain. And of the honour you plainly took away not even a little, while of the toils you do not deem him worthy to share even a little—except where it is necessary to campaign, following you, for a short while. Need there, then, be any witnesses or proofs added to the discourse about these matters? Or is it plain, from the speaker, that he is not bringing in false words?

37. But about these matters it is worth dwelling no further.

Of your temperance and wisdom, and of how much goodwill you have worked in your subjects, it is perhaps not out of place to go through a few things briefly. For who of all men is ignorant that you have, from childhood, taken such care of this virtue as no other man before you? Your father became a sufficient witness of your temperance as a boy, when he entrusted to you alone the management of the empire and of relations with your brothers, though you were not even the eldest of his children; and of your temperance as a man we are all aware—seeing you ever conduct yourself toward the multitude and toward those in office like a citizen obedient to the laws, not like a king ruling over the laws. For who has known you to think more highly of yourself because of your good fortune? Who has known you elated by successes so great, achieved in so short a time? But they say that Alexander the son of Philip, when he had overthrown the power of the Persians, not only changed his whole way of life to greater pomp and a haughtiness too grievous for all to bear, but went so far as to look down upon his own father and upon all human nature; for he claimed to be reckoned the son of Ammon, not of Philip, and of those who campaigned with him, all who knew not how to flatter or to be slaves were punished more bitterly than the captives. But of your honour toward your father—is it worth making mention here? Whom not only did you revere in private, but in the public assemblies you never ceased proclaiming, like a good hero. And of your friends—for you deem them worthy of honour not in name only, but you confirm the name far more by deeds—is there, then, anyone who complains of dishonour or loss or harm, or of some slight or greater contempt? But no one could say any such thing. For of these men, some, being very aged, having remained in office to the destined end of life, laid aside the care of public affairs together with their bodies, passing on their estates to children or friends or kinsmen; others, declining toils and campaigns, having received an honourable discharge, live in prosperity; and some have departed this life, judged by the multitude to be blessed. And in general there is not even one who, once he was deemed worthy of this honour, even if he afterward proved base, met with any punishment small or great; it sufficed merely that he was removed and gave no further trouble.

38. Amid all these things, and being such from the first, you kept your soul pure of every pleasure to which there attaches reproach, even a small one. You alone, I think, of former emperors—or rather, save very few, of all men—offered the fairest example of temperance not to men only, but to women too, in their partnership with their husbands. For all that the laws forbid to women, in their care that children be born legitimate, this reason forbids to your desires. But about these matters, though I could say still more, I let it pass.

To go through a worthy praise of your wisdom is by no means easy; yet a little must be said of this too. And deeds, I think, are more to be trusted than words. For it is not likely that so great an empire and power, unless administered and mastered by an equal wisdom, should attain to so great a magnitude and beauty of deeds; and one must be content if a power entrusted to fortune alone, without wisdom, even lasts long. For to flourish for a short while, attending upon fortune, is easy, but to preserve the goods given, without wisdom, is not very easy—or rather perhaps impossible. And in general, if one must give a clear proof of this too, we shall not lack for many and well-known ones. For we suppose that good counsel discovers, among the goods and advantages concerning actions, the best. It is worth considering, then, in absolutely all things, whether this is not one of the things you have done. Where there was need of concord, you rejoiced to take the lesser share; where the common good had to be aided, you took up the war most eagerly. And the power of the Persians you outgeneralled and destroyed without losing one of your men-at-arms; while the war against the usurpers you divided—the one you mastered by public speeches, and, having added his power intact and unharmed by evils, you fought down the other, who was the cause of so many disasters to the state, more through understanding than through strength.

39. But I wish, by speaking more clearly about these matters, to show all men in what especially you trusted, that, having given yourself to such great affairs, you failed of nothing whatever. You think that goodwill from his subjects is, for one who reigns, the surest of all bulwarks. But to acquire this by command and order, like contributions and tributes, is wholly unreasonable. There remains, then, what you yourself have set out to do: to do good to all, and to imitate the divine nature among men—to be gentle toward anger, to take away the harshness of punishments, and, when your enemies have stumbled, I think, to treat them fairly and considerately. Doing these things, admiring these things, ordering others to imitate them, you transferred Rome—while the usurper still held Italy—through the senate, to Paeonia, and had the cities eager for their public services.

And the goodwill of the armies, who could worthily relate? A squadron of cavalry came over before the engagement at Mursa; and when you had mastered Italy, levies of infantry and brilliant detachments. But the event that took place a little after the wretched end of the usurper, in Gaul, showed the goodwill of all the armies in common: when they suddenly tore in pieces, like a wolf, the man who grew bold as though in a wilderness and had wrapped himself in the womanish purple. But what manner of man you were in this affair, and how gently and humanely you treated all the friends of that man—all who were not proved to have shared in his deeds, though many slanderers stood ready with their accusations and bade you suspect mere friendship with him—this I set down as the sum of all virtue. For I declare it was done fairly and justly, and far more wisely still. And whoever thinks otherwise has erred both from the true judgement of the matter and from your intention. For it was just, as was likely, that those not convicted should be saved; and you by no means thought it right to make friendships suspect and, for that reason, to be shunned—you who had been raised to such a height of greatness and of deeds by the goodwill of your subjects. Indeed you allowed the child of the man who had dared all this, though quite an infant, to share in none of his father's penalty. So your action, inclining thus toward fairness, is the token of perfect virtue. . . .