cause a flute-player to precede him with soft airs when he returned to
his house after any dinner-party.

6. Under this same Apronianus all necessaries were so abundant in Rome
that not the slightest murmur because of any scarcity of supplies was
ever heard, which is very common at Rome.

IV.

Sec. 1. But in Bithynia, Valentinian, as we have already mentioned, having
been declared emperor, having fixed the next day but one for beginning
his march, assembled his chief officers, and, as if the course which he
preferred was to follow their advice, inquired whom they recommended him
to take for his colleague; and when no one made him any answer,
Dagalaiphus, who at that time was commander of the cavalry, boldly
answered "If, O excellent emperor, you love your own kindred, you have a
brother; if you love the republic, then seek the fittest man to invest."

2. Valentinian was offended with this speech, but kept silence, and
dissembled his displeasure and his intentions. And having made a rapid
journey he reached Nicomedia on the first of March, where he appointed
his brother Valens master of the horse with the rank of tribune.

3. And after that, when he reached Constantinople, revolving many
considerations in his mind, and considering that he himself was already
overwhelmed with the magnitude of pressing business, he thought that
the emergency would admit of no delay; and on the 28th of March he led
Valens into the suburbs, where, with the consent of all men (and indeed
no one dared to object), he declared him emperor, had him clothed in the
imperial robes, and crowned with a diadem, and then brought him back in
the same carriage with himself as the legitimate partner of his power,
though in fact he was to be more like an obedient servant, as the
remainder of my narrative will show.

4. After these matters had been thus settled without any interruption,
the two emperors suffered a long time from a violent fever; but when out
of danger (as they were more active in the investigation of evils than
in removing them) they intrusted the commission to investigate the
secret causes of this malady to Ursatius the master of the offices, a
fierce Dalmatian, and to Juventius Siscianus the quaestor, their real
motive, as was constantly reported, being to bring the memory of Julian
and that of his friends into odium, as if their illness had been owing
to their secret malpractices. But this insinuation was easily disposed
of, sin