stor and Martinianus, who had been the
accomplices of Romanus in his rapine and other crimes, and afterwards
burnt them.

51. After this the war with the Isaflenses was renewed; and in the
first conflict, after the barbarians had been routed with heavy loss,
their king Igmazen, who had hitherto been accustomed to be victorious,
agitated by fears of the present calamity, and thinking that all his
alliances would be destroyed, and that he should have no hope left in
life if he continued to resist, with all the cunning and secrecy that he
could, fled by himself from the battle; and reaching Theodosius,
besought him in a suppliant manner to desire Masilla, the chief
magistrate of the Mazices, to come to him.

52. When that noble had been sent to him as he requested, he employed
him as his agent to advise the general, as a man by nature constant and
resolute in his plans, that the way to accomplish his purpose would be
to press his countrymen with great vigour, and, by incessant fighting,
strike terror into them; as, though they were keen partisans of Firmus,
they were nevertheless wearied out by repeated disasters.

53. Theodosius adopted this advice, and, by battle after battle, so
completely broke the spirits of the Isaflenses, that they fell away like
sheep, and Firmus again secretly escaped, and hiding himself for a long
time in out-of-the-way places and retreats, till at last, while
deliberating on a further flight, he was seized by Igmazen, and put in
confinement.

54. And since he had learnt from Masilla the plans which had been
agitated in secret, he at last came to reflect that in so extreme a
necessity there was but one remedy remaining, and he determined to
trample under foot the love of life by a voluntary death; and having
designedly filled himself with wine till he became stupefied, when, in
the silence of the night, his keepers were sunk in profound slumber, he,
fully awake from dread of the misfortune impending over him, left his
bed with noiseless steps, and crawling on his hands and feet, conveyed
himself to a distance, and then, having found a rope which chance
provided for the end of his life, he fastened it to a nail which was
fixed in the wall, and hanging himself, escaped the protracted
sufferings of torture.

55. Igmazen was vexed at this, lamenting that he was thus robbed of his
glory, because it had not been granted to him to conduct this rebel
alive to the Roman camp; and so, having received