man called Assyria, neither silent nor
prudent. And when he had gone on an expedition which caused her much
alarm, she, because of the predictions which she recollected to have
been given her, and being full of female vanity, having summoned a
handmaid who was skilful in writing, and of whom she had become
possessed by inheritance from her father Silvanus, sent an unseasonable
letter to her husband, full of lamentations, and of entreaties that
after the approaching death of Constantius, if he himself, as she hoped,
was admitted to a share in the empire, he would not despise her, and
prefer to marry Eusebia, who was Constantius's empress, and who was of a
beauty equalled by few women.

3. She sent this letter as secretly as she could; but the maid, when the
troops had returned from their expedition at the beginning of the night,
took a copy of the letter which she had written at the dictation of her
mistress, to Arbetio, and being eagerly admitted by him, she gave him
the paper.

4. He, relying on this evidence, being at all times a man eager to bring
forward accusations, conveyed it to the emperor. As was usual, no delay
was allowed, and Barbatio, who confessed that he had received the
letter, and his wife, who was distinctly proved to have written it, were
both beheaded.

5. After this execution, investigations were carried further, and many
persons, innocent as well as guilty, were brought into question. Among
whom was Valentinus, who having lately been an officer of the
protectores, had been promoted to be a tribune; and he with many others
was put to the torture as having been privy to the affair, though he was
wholly ignorant of it. But he survived his sufferings; and as some
compensation for the injury done to him, and for his danger, he received
the rank of duke of Illyricum.

6. This same Barbatio was a man of rude and arrogant manners, and very
unpopular, because while captain of the protectores of the household, in
the time of Gallus Caesar, he was a false and treacherous man; and after
he had attained the higher rank he became so elated that he invented
calumnies against the Caesar Julian, and, though all good men hated him,
whispered many wicked lies into the ever-ready ears of the emperor.

7. Being forsooth ignorant of the wise old saying of Aristotle, who when
he sent Callisthenes, his pupil and relation, to the king Alexander,
warned him to say as little as he could, and that only of a pleasant
kin