home, and the Roman emperor went to Antioch; and while he tarried there,
in complete security from foreign enemies, he had very nearly perished
through domestic treachery, as shall be related in the coming narrative.

5. A certain Procopius, a restless man, at all times covetous and fond
of disturbances, had persuaded Anatolius and Spudasius, officers about
the palace, who had been ordered to restore what they had appropriated
from the treasury, to bring a plot against the Count Fortunatianus, who
was especially obnoxious as being represented to be the principal
demander of this restitution. He, being a man of naturally harsh temper,
was thereupon inflamed almost to insanity, and exercising the authority
of the office which he filled, he delivered up to trial before the
tribunal of the prefect a person of the lowest birth, named Palladius,
for being a poisoner in the train of Anatolius and Spudasius;
Heliodorus, also an interpreter of the Fates from the events which
happened at any one's birth; with the intent that they should be
compelled by torture to relate all that they knew.

6. And when they came with rigid scrutiny to inquire into what had been
done or attempted, Palladius boldly exclaimed, that the matters now
under investigation were trivial, and such as might well be passed over;
that he himself, if he might be allowed to speak, could bring forward
some circumstances both formidable and more important, which, having
been prepared with great exertion, would throw everything into
confusion, if they were not provided against beforehand. Being ordered
to explain without fear all he knew, he made a deposition at great
length, affirming that Fidustius the president, and Pergamius and
Irenaeus, had secretly learnt, by the detestable arts of magic, the name
of the person who should become emperor after Valens.

7. Fidustius was at once arrested (for he happened by chance be on the
spot), and being brought secretly before the emperor, when confronted
with the informer, he did not attempt by any denial to throw a doubt on
what was already revealed, but laid open the whole of this wretched
plot; confessing in plain words, that he himself, with Hilarius and
Patricius, men skilled in the art of soothsaying, of whom Hilarius had
filled high offices in the palace, had held consultations about the
future possessors of the empire; that by secret arts they had searched
into the Fates, which had revealed to them the name of an