nd, like a
prudent man, he will pardon me if I do not record everything which the
wickedness of certain counsels has occasioned by exaggerating every
accusation?

2. For while severity, the foe of all right principles, increased,
Valentinian, being a man of a naturally ferocious disposition, when
Maximin arrived, having no one to give him good advice or to restrain
him, proceeded, as if hurried on by a storm of winds and waves, to all
kinds of cruel actions; so that when angry, his voice, his countenance,
his gait, and his complexion, were continually changing. And of this
passionate intemperance there are many undoubted instances, of which it
will be sufficient to recount a few.

3. A certain grown-up youth, of those called pages, having been
appointed to take care of a Spartan hound which had been brought out for
hunting, let him loose before the appointed moment, because the animal,
in its efforts to escape, leaped upon him and bit him; and for this he
was beaten to death and buried the same day.

4. The master of a workshop, who had brought the emperor an offering of
a breastplate most exquisitely polished, and who was therefore in
expectation of a reward, was ordered by him to be put to death because
the steel was of less weight than he considered requisite.... There was
a certain native, of Epirus, a priest of the Christian religion.[179]
...

5. Constantianus, the master of the stables, having ventured to change
a few of the horses, to select which he had been despatched to Sardinia,
was, by his order, stoned to death. Athanasius, a very popular
character, being suspected by him of some levity in the language he held
among the common people, was sentenced to be burnt alive if he ever did
anything of the kind again; and not long afterwards, being accused of
having practised magic, he was actually burnt, no pardon being given
even to one whose devices had often afforded the emperor great
amusement.

6. Africanus was an advocate of great diligence, residing in Rome; he
had had the government of one province, and aspired to that of another.
But when Theodosius, the commander of the cavalry, supported his
petition for such an office, the emperor answered him somewhat rudely,
"Away with you, O count, and change the head of the man who wishes to
have his province changed." And by this sentence a man of great
eloquence perished, only because, like many others, he wished for higher
preferment.

7. Claudian and Sa