condemned Sericus and Asbolius, who
have been mentioned before; and because while exhorting them to name any
others who occurred to them, he had promised them with an oath that they
should not themselves be punished either by fire or sword, he had them
slain by violent blows from balls of lead. After this he also burnt
alive Campensis the soothsayer, not having in his case bound himself by
any oath or promise.

30. Here it is in my opinion convenient to explain the cause which
brought Aginatius headlong to destruction, a man ennobled by a long race
of ancestors, as unvarying tradition affirms, though no proof of his
ancestral renown was ever substantiated.

31. Maximin, full of pride and arrogance, and being then also prefect of
the corn-market, and having many encouragements to audacity, proceeded
so far as to show his contempt for Probus, the most illustrious of all
the nobles, and who was governing the provinces with the authority of
prefect of the praetorium.

32. Aginatius, being indignant at this, and feeling it a hardship that
in the trial of causes Olybrius had preferred Maximin to himself, while
he was actually deputy at Rome, secretly informed Probus in private
letters that the arrogant and foolish man who had thus set himself
against his lofty merits, might easily be put down if he thought fit.

33. These letters, as some affirm, Probus sent to Maximin, hardened as
he was in wickedness, because he feared his influence with the emperor;
letting none but the bearer know the business. And when he had read
them, the cruel Maximin became furious, and henceforth set all his
engines at work to destroy Aginatius, like a serpent that had been
bruised by some one whom it knew.

34. There was another still more powerful cause for intriguing against
him, which ultimately became his destruction. For he charged Victorinus,
who was dead, and from whom he had received a very considerable legacy,
with having while alive made money of the decrees of Maximin; and with
similar maliciousness he had also threatened his wife Anepsia with a
lawsuit.

35. Anepsia, alarmed at this, and to support herself by the aid of
Maximin, pretended that her husband in a will which he had recently
made, had left him three thousand pounds weight of silver. He, full of
covetousness, for this too was one of his vices, demanded half the
inheritance, and afterwards, not being contented with that, as if it
were hardly sufficient, he contrived ano