bear the greediness and
arrogance of the soldiers, was exciting the people of Mauritania to
every kind of discord and disturbance. With similar resolution would he
have avenged the disasters sustained in Illyricum, had he not left that
important duty uncompleted, in consequence of being thus cut off by a
premature death.

11. And although these various achievements, which we have here
recorded, were consummated by the assistance of his admirable generals,
yet it is very notorious that he himself also performed many
considerable exploits; being a man fertile in resources, and of long
experience and great skill in military affairs: and certainly it would
have been an admirable crown to his great actions if he had been able to
take King Macrianus alive, who at that time was a very formidable
sovereign; nevertheless he exerted great energy in attempting to do so,
after he heard that he had escaped from the Burgundians, whom he himself
had led against the Allemanni; and the certainty of his escape was to
him a cause of great sorrow and indignation.

VIII.

Sec. 1. Thus have I rapidly run over the different actions of this prince.
Now, relying on the certainty that posterity, inasmuch as it is free
both from fear and from base flattery, is usually an honest judge of all
past transactions, I will rapidly run over his vices, intending
afterwards to relate his good qualities.

2. Sometimes he put on an affectation of clemency, though the bent of
his natural disposition inclined him more to cruelty: forgetful
forsooth, that by a man who governs a vast empire extremes of every
kind are to be avoided as rocks by a mariner.

3. Nor indeed was he ever found to be contented with moderate
punishments, but was continually commanding cruel tortures to be
multiplied; so that many, after undergoing this murderous kind of
examination, were brought to death's door. And he was so eager to
inflict injury, that he never once saved any one who had been condemned
to death, by a milder sentence, though even the most inhuman of emperors
have sometimes done so.

4. And yet he might have reflected on many examples in former ages; and
he might have imitated the many models of humanity and of piety which he
could have found both among natives of the empire and among those of
foreign extraction (and humanity and piety are defined by philosophers
to be qualities nearly akin). Of such instances it will suffice to
enumerate these which follow:--