ate them all, the death of Marinus,
the celebrated advocate, was especially remarkable. He was condemned to
death on a charge which was not even attempted to be supported by
evidence, of having endeavoured by wicked acts to compass a marriage
with Hispanilla.

15. And since I think that perhaps some persons may read this history
who, after careful investigation, will object to it that such and such a
thing was done before another; or again that this or that circumstance
has been omitted, I consider that I have inserted enough, because it is
not every event which has been brought about by base people that is
worth recording; nor, if it were necessary to relate them all, would
there be materials for such an account, not even if the public records
themselves were examined, when so many atrocious deeds were common, and
when this new frenzy was throwing everything into confusion without the
slightest restraint; and when what was feared was evidently not a
judicial trial but a total cessation of all justice.

16. At this time, Cethegus, a senator, who was accused of adultery, was
beheaded, and a young man of noble birth, named Alypius, who had been
banished for some trivial misconduct, with some other persons of low
descent, were all publicly executed; while every one appeared in their
sufferings to see a representation of what they themselves might expect,
and dreamt of nothing but tortures, prisons, and dark dungeons.

17. At the same time also, the affair of Hymetius, a man of very eminent
character, took place, of which the circumstances were as follows. When
he was governing Africa as proconsul, and the Carthaginians were in
extreme distress for want of food, he supplied them with corn out of the
granaries destined for the Roman people; and shortly afterwards, when
there was a fine harvest, he without delay fully replaced what he had
thus consumed.

18. But as at the time of the scarcity ten bushels had been sold to
those who were in want for a piece of gold, while he now bought thirty
for the same sum, he sent the profit derived from the difference in
price to the emperor's treasury. Therefore, Valentinian, suspecting that
there was not as much sent as there ought to have been as the proceeds
of this traffic, confiscated a portion of his property.

19. And to aggravate the severity of this infliction, another
circumstance happened about the same time which equally tended to his
ruin. Amantius was a soothsayer of pr