right-thinking people are of opinion, it was rather an
indication of great virtue in Constantius to have quelled the empire
without shedding more blood, than to have revenged himself with such
cruelty.

13. As Cicero also teaches us, when in one of his letters to Nepos he
accuses Caesar of cruelty, "For," says he, "felicity is nothing else but
success in what is honourable;" or to define it in another way,
"Felicity is fortune assisting good counsels, and he who is not guided
by such cannot be happy. Therefore in wicked and impious designs such as
those of Caesar there could be no felicity; and in my judgment Camillus
when in exile was happier than Manlius at the same time, even if Manlius
had been able to make himself king, as he wished."

14. The same is the language of Heraclitus of Ephesus, when he remarks
that men of eminent capacity and virtue, through the caprice of fortune,
have often been overcome by men destitute of either talent or energy.
But that that glory is the best when power, existing with high rank,
forces, as it were, its inclinations to be angry and cruel, and
oppressive under the yoke, and so erects a glorious trophy in the
citadel of its victorious mind.

15. But as in his foreign wars this emperor was unsuccessful and
unfortunate, on the other hand in his civil contests he was successful;
and in all those domestic calamities he covered himself with the horrid
blood of the enemies of the republic and of himself; and yielding to his
elation at these triumphs in a way neither right nor usual, he erected
at a vast expense triumphal arches in Gaul and the two Pannonias, to
record his triumphs over his own provinces; engraving on them the titles
of his exploits ... as long as they should last, to those who read the
inscriptions.

16. He was preposterously addicted to listening to his wives, and to the
thin voices of his eunuchs, and some of his courtiers, who applauded all
his words, and watched everything he said, whether in approval or
disapproval, in order to agree with it.

17. The misery of these times was further increased by the insatiable
covetousness of his tax-collectors, who brought him more odium than
money; and to many persons this seemed the more intolerable, because he
never listened to any excuse, never took any measures for relief of the
provinces when oppressed by the multiplicity of taxes and imposts; and
in addition to all this he was very apt to take back any exemptions
which