ut
although sufficiently acute in detecting and exposing the follies of
others, and especially in ridiculing the absurdities of popular
superstition, Ammianus did not entirely escape the contagion. The
general and deep-seated belief in magic spells, omens, prodigies, and
oracles, which appears to have gained additional strength upon the first
introduction of Christianity, evidently exercised no small influence
over his mind. The old legends and doctrines of the pagan creed, and the
subtle mysticism which philosophers pretended to discover lurking below,
when mixed up with the pure and simple but startling tenets of the new
faith, formed a confused mass which few intellects could reduce to order
and harmony."

The vices of our author's style, and his ambitious affectation of
ornament, are condemned by most critics; but some of the points which
strike a modern reader as defects evidently arise from the alteration
which the Latin language had already undergone since the days of Livy.
His great value, however, consists in the facts he has made known to us,
and is quite independent of the style or language in which he has
conveyed that knowledge, of which without him we should have been nearly
destitute.

The present translation has been made from Wagner and Erfurdt's edition,
published at Leipzig in 1808, and their division of chapters into short
paragraphs has been followed.

_Feb._ 1862.

THE HISTORY OF AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS.

THE FIRST THIRTEEN BOOKS ARE LOST.

BOOK XIV.

ARGUMENT.

I. The cruelty of the Caesar Gallus.--II. The incursions of the
Isaurians.--III. The unsuccessful plans of the Persians.--IV. The
invasion of the Saracens, and the manners of that people.--V. The
punishment of the adherents of Magnentius.--VI. The vices of the
senate and people of Rome.--VII. The ferocity and inhumanity of the
Caesar Gallus.--VIII. A description of the provinces of the
East.--IX. About the Caesar Constantius Gallus.--X. The Emperor
Constantius grants the Allemanni peace at their request.--XI. The
Caesar Constantius Gallus is sent for by the Emperor Constantius,
and beheaded.

I.

A.D. 353.

Sec. 1. After the events of an expedition full of almost insuperable
difficulties, while the spirits of all parties in the state, broken by
the variety of their dangers and toils, were still enfeebled; while the
clang of trumpets was ringing in men's ears, and