Nemesis by Ammianus Marcelllinus

A.D. 354 Gallus Executed

Here, free from the weight of other cares, Constantius addressed his mind to the knotty problem posed by the Caesar, an obstacle in his path which would need all his strength to remove. In many discussions held secretly at night with his nearest associates, he debated how this might be achieved by force or fraud before Gallus’s increasing confidence cased him to embark on a more persistent course of disruption. Finally it was decided to send him a mild letter, summoning him to Milan on the ground that he was needed for very urgent public business; in this way he could be deprived of support and put to death without let or hindrance.

This plan was opposed by several fickle courtiers, among who was Arbito, an argent intriguer, and Eusebius the grand chamberlain, who was even more given to mischief; they objected that it would be dangerous to leave Ursicinus in the East after the Caesar’s departure, with no one to check any ambitious designs that he might entertain. They were supported by the rest of the eunuchs in the royal service, whose greed at that time passed all human bounds, and who found in the course of their private attendance on the emperor opportunities of fostering  fictitious accusations by mysterious whispers. The gallant officer was almost crushed by the implacable hatred of his enemies; they put about a rumor that his grown sons, who we popular on account of their looks and youth, were being groomed for supreme power, and that their reputation for versatility in the management of arms and for physical agility in the daily military exercises was part of this plan. It was suggested that Gallus’ naturally savage temper had been excited to acts of violence by agents place about him for this purpose, so that when he had earned the detestation of all classes the trappings of imperial power might be transferred to the sons of the master of cavalry.

While this and similar talk assailed the emperor’s ears, which were always open to gossip of this kind, he wavered between various courses, but concluded in the end that the best plan open to him was to begin by sensing for Ursicinus in the most honorific  terms, alleging that in the present crisis he urgently need to consult him about the additional forces required to break the threatened attack of the Parthian peoples. To avert any suspicion on the part of Ursicinus, count Prosper was sent to act as his deputy till he returned. So when this letter arrived, together with leave to use the imperial posting system, we hurried to Milan with all possible speed.

The next thing was to induce the Caesar to hasten his own departure, and to remove any suspicion Constantius urged his sister, Gallus’ wife, to come to him, pretending with many professions of affection that he had long desired a visit from her. Though she feared his cruel nature and hesitated, she set out in the hope that as he was her brother she would be able to often him, but when she reached the post station in Bithynia called Caeni Gallican she was carried off by a sudden fever. Her death left her husband a prey to anxiety about his best course; he realized that he had lost his chief support, and in his difficult and confused situation one thought alone occupied his distracted mind, that Constantius, who relied entirely upon his own judgement, would admit no excuse and grant no forgiveness for his errors, but being inclined, as he was, to destroy his kindred, would spread a secret snare for him and punish him with death if he caught him off his guard. In these straits, expecting the worst if he relaxed his vigilance, he came to a secret decision to lay claim to supreme power, if he saw an opening; he had, however, a double reason for fearing  that he would be betrayed by those nearest to him, first because they dreaded his cruel and capricious temper, and second, because they were overawed by the better luck of Constantius in civil warfare.

In the midst of these great and crushing anxieties he received incessant letters from the emperor advising and entreating his presence, and obliquely hinting that the empire neither could nor should be divided, but that everyone must contribute what he could to its support in its present tottering state, an allusion presumably to the devastation of the Gallic provinces. By way of precedent from the not very distant past, Contantius added that Diocletian and his colleagues had employed the Caesars as adjutants who were dispatched hither and thither about the empire and had no fixed place of residence, and that on one occasion in Syria, when the  Augustus was angry, Galerius in his purple marched on foot in front of his carriage for nearly a mile.

Last of a number of envoys came Scudilo, tribune of the Scutarii*, whom under a blunt exterior concealed consummate skill in the art of persuasion. By a mixture of flatteries and lies he succeeded where all others have failed in enticing Gallus to set out, constantly assuring him with an appearance of sincerity that his cousin was burning to see him, that his gentleness and mildness were such that he would pardon anything that he had done amiss, and that he would associate him with himself in the empire and make him his partner in the tasks which had to be undertaken in the long-exhausted provinces of the North.

 It is a commonplace that when fate lays its hands upon a man his perceptions are dulled and blunted; Gallus was encouraged by these blandishments to hope for better things, and, leaving Antioch under an evil star, jumped, as the old proverb puts it, from the frying pan into the fire. On reaching Constantinople he held games in the hippodrome, as if he were perfectly safe and secure, and placed a crown on thye head of the charioteer Thorax, who was the winner. At this news Constantius’ rage  passed all bounds .  .  .

Gallus yielded to the pressure and hasted his journey ( leaving behind most of his retinue), covered with dust and frequently reproaching himself with tears and curses for his own rashness, which had brought him down and placed him at the the mercy of the lowest of the low. At this time, whenever nature granted him the respite of sleep, his senses were assailed by the shrieks of terrifying specters, and hosts of his victims, headed by Domitian and Montius**, seemed in his dream to be seizing him and delivering him into the clutches of the Furies. When the soul is set free from its ties with the body it remains ceaselessly active, and summons up, from the subconscious thoughts and anxieties which harass men’s minds, visions of the night, which we Greeks call phantoms.

So, as his miserable lot opened before him, the path on which he was fated to lose both his power and his life, he proceeded without a stop until the whole truth of the plot against him was at last revealed. Henceforth, in the town of Poerovio , Noricum, all pretense was laid aside. . . .

 

The emperor ordered Eusebius, the grand chamberlain, Pentadius, a notary, and Mallobaudes, a tribune of the guards to question him on the reasons which had led him to order the deaths of each of his victims at Antioch. Gallus, with a face as white as Adrastus, had just strength enough to reply that most of them had been massacred at thhe instance of his wife Constantina; he was ignorant, no doubt, of the wise answer given by Alexander the Great to his mother when she was urging him to put to death an innocent person, and in the hope of getting what she wanted reminded him that she carried him for nine months in her womb. ‘Ask some other boon, my good mother; no benefit can be put in balance with the life of a man.’ When this was reported to the emperor’s anger and indignation became inexorable. He sent Serenian together with Pentadius and Apodemius the security agent and Gallus, with his hands tied like a highwayman, was beheaded. His head and face were mutilated, and the man who so short a time before had been an object of dread to cities and provinces was left lying a hideous corpse upon the ground.

 

But the justice of the powers above kept its unsleeping eye on both sides alike. Gallus was brought down by his own wicked deeds, but, guilty though he was, both  the men who led him into the fatal snare by their lies and cajolery were cut off not long after by an agonizing death. Scudilo was attacked by an abscess of the liver and died vomiting up his lungs. Barbatio, who had over a long period had been inventing false charges against Gallus, fell victim to a whispering campaign. . .  So by an unlamented death he made reparation to the spirit of the Caesar whom his treachery has destroyed.

These and countless other events of this kind are brought to pass from time to time (would that it were invariably so) by the operation of Adrasta, who punishes evil and rewards good deeds and whom we also call Nemesis. She is the sublime manifestation of a powerful divinity dwelling, men believe, above the orbit of the moon. Others define her as the personification of a protective power, exercising a general surveillance over the destiny of individual, and represented in the theogonies of old as the daughter of Justice, who from her unseen eternal throne looks down upon all things on earth. Queen over all causation and arbiter and umpire of all events, she controls the urn from which men’s lots are cast and regulates their vicissitudes of fortune, often bringing their enterprises to a different end from that which they designed and confounding their various actions by the changes she imposes. It is she, too, who binds the vainly swelling pride of mortal men in the indissoluble chain of necessity, and casts, as she alone can, her weight into the scale by which they rise and fall: at one moment she bears down into the stiff necks of the proud and takes away their strength, at another she raises the good out of dust and exalts them to prosperity, the myths of antiquity endowed her with wings so that all might understand that she appears with the speed of a bird; they put a rudder in her hand and a wheel beneath her feet to signify that she runs through all the elements and governs the universe.

Such was the way in which Gallus, who had himself become weary of life, came to an untimely end at the age of twenty-eight after a reign of four years. He was born in Etruria at Massa Veternensis; his father was Constantius, brother of the emperor Constantine, and his mother Galla, the sister of Rufinus and Cerealis, who both attained the distinction of the consulship and a prefecture. He was a man of remarkably good looks, with a fine frame and well-proportioned limbs. His hair was blonde and soft, and his beard, though at first delicate down, gave him a look of authority beyond his years. In character the difference between  him and his sober brother Julian was as great as between Domitian and Titus, the sons of Vespasian. After reaching the highest place that fortune can give he experienced the caprice by which she makes a mockery of life, at one moment exalting men to the sky and at the next plunging them into the depths of hell. Of this there are innumerable examples, some of which I will briefly touch upon.

The same fickle and changeable fortune raised Agathocles from the trade of a potter to be king of Sicily, and set Dionysius, once the terror of nations, to preside over an elementary school at Corinth. She brought Andriscus of Adramyttium, a man born in a fullers shop, to a position in which he could usurp the name of Philip, and taught the legitimate son of  Perseus to earn his living by the trade of a blacksmith. She delivered Mancius, after he held supreme command, into the tender mercies of the Samnites and Corsicans respectively, and she subjected Regulus to the cruelty of the Carthaginians. Through the injustice of of fortune Pompey, whose glorious  exploits has earned him the title of Great, was murdered in Egypt at the behest of eunuchs, while a convict called Eunus achieved the command of fugitive slaves in Sicily. How any Romans of high birth prostrated themselves at the feet of Viriathus or Spartacus while this mistress of the world looked on. How any heads at which the peoples of the earth trembled have fallen by the fatal hand of the executioner. One man is thrown into prison, another is raised to power beyond his hopes, a third is cast down from the highest pinnacle of greatness.

To try to fathom the variety and frequency of such events would be as foolish as to try to number the sands of the sea or to calculate the weight of mountains.

*[Total War Wiki] Heavy infantry, armed with deadly falcata swords, are a handy unit for any general.

Scutarii, or shield bearers, take their name from the Latin word scutum, or shield, although it is highly unlikely the Iberians used this title for themselves. Regardless, the scutarii carried the thureos, a large, oval, wooden shield that was perfectly suited for use in man-to-man combat. They wore little armour, and this gave them greater mobility than many of their opponents, particularly the armoured Roman legionaries. This mobility was used to charge forward and then feign retreat in the hope of getting the enemy to pursue and break their lines. Once an enemy unit took the bait, the retreat would end, and a genuine attack on now-out-of-position and unsupported foes would be staged: a simple tactic, perhaps, but still a deadly one when used well.

[Halopedia] The scutarii were a class of Warrior-Servant serving the Forerunner navy tasked with ship security. Heavily armored, the scutarii excelled in shipboard combat and tactical reconfiguration of their ship's interior spaces.

Heatwave, Rome’s Ultimate Weapon of  Mass Destruction
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/videos/the-manubalista-was-romes-secret-weapon-in-an/

**[Wikipedia] Montius Magnus (flourished 4th century AD, died 354) was a Roman politician. Little is known of his origins, although he may have originated in Africa.[1] At some point before 351 he served as a proconsul, possibly of Constantinople.[1] When Constantius Gallus was made Caesar in 351, Magnus was appointed as his quaestor sacri palatii, and raised the rank of patricius.[1][2] Magnus was lynched by the troops at the instigation of Gallus in 354, but the reason is unclear: some sources report that he tried to defend the praetorian prefect of the East Domitian, who had insulted Gallus, others that Magnus insulted Gallus as well, while others claim that he informed the Augustus Constantius II of Gallus' plots against him. At any rate, Magnus and Domitian were lynched side by side.[2][3]