The Limigantes of Sarmatia deceive the emperor by a pretended request for peace and attack him; but they are repulsed with great slaughter.
In the midst of such troubles Constantius, who was still enjoying his winter rest at Sirmium, was disturbed by fearful and serious news, informing him of what he then greatly dreaded, namely, that the Sarmatian Limigantes, who (as we have already pointed out) 1 had driven their masters from their ancestral abodes, having gradually abandoned the [p. 525] places which for the public good had been assigned them the year before for fear that they (as they are inconstant) might attempt some wrongful act, had seized upon the regions bordering upon their frontiers, were ranging freely in their native fashion, and unless they were driven back would cause general confusion. [2] The emperor, believing that these outrages would soon be pushed to greater heights if the matter were postponed, assembled from every quarter a great number of soldiers most eager for war and took the field before spring had yet fully come; he was the more eager for action from two considerations: first, because an army glutted with the rich booty of the past summer, by the hope of similar booty would be confidently encouraged to achieve successful enterprises, and because under Anatolius, 2 who at that time was prefect of Illyricum, all necessary supplies had been brought together even ahead of time and were still coming in without trouble to anyone. [3] For never under the management of any other prefect up to the present time, as was generally agreed, had the northern provinces so abounded in all blessings, since by his kindly and skilful correction of abuses they were relieved of the great cost of the courier-service, which had closed homes without number, and there was considerable hope of freedom from the income tax. The dwellers in those parts might have lived thereafter happy and untroubled without grounds for complaint, had not later the most hated forms of taxation that could be imagined, criminally amplified by both tax-payers and tax-collectors, since the [p. 527] latter hoped to gain the protection of the governors in their efforts and the former hoped for safety if all were impoverished, resulted finally in proscriptions and the suicide of the wretched victims. [4] Well, then, the emperor (as I have said), in order to improve the pressing situation, set out with splendid equipment and came to Valeria, once a part of Pannonia, but made into a province and named in honour of Valeria, the daughter of Diocletian. There, with his army encamped along the banks of the river Hister, 3 he watched the savages, who before his coming, under pretext of friendship but really intending secretly to devastate the country, were planning to enter Pannonia in the dead of winter, when the snows are not yet melted by the warmth of spring and so the river can be crossed everywhere, and when our soldiers would with difficulty, because of the frosts, endure life in the open. [5] Then having quickly sent two tribunes to the Limigantes, each with an interpreter, by courteous questioning he tried to find out why they had left their homes after the treaty of peace which had been granted to them at their own request, and were thus roaming at large and disturbing the frontiers, notwithstanding orders to the contrary. [6] They gave some frivolous and unsatisfactory excuses, since fear forced them to lie, and begged for pardon, entreating the emperor to forget his anger and allow them to cross the river and come to him, in order to inform him of the difficulties that they were suffering. They were ready to take up far distant lands, but within the compass of the Roman world, [p. 529] if he would allow them, in order that wrapped in lasting repose and worshipping Quiet (as a saving goddess), they might submit to the burdens and the name of tributaries. [7] When this was known after the return of the tribunes, the emperor, exulting in the accomplishment without any toil of a task which he thought insuperable, admitted them all, being inflamed with the desire for greater gain, which his crew of flatterers increased by constantly dinning it into his ears that now that foreign troubles were quieted, and peace made everywhere, he would gain more child-producing subjects and be able to muster a strong force of recruits; for the provincials are glad to contribute gold to save their bodies, 4 a hope which has more than once proved disastrous to the Roman state. 5 [8] Accordingly, having placed a rampart near Acimincum 6 and erected a high mound in the manner of a tribunal, ships carrying some light-armed legionaries were ordered to patrol the channel of the river near the banks, with one Innocentius, a field-measurer, who had recommended the plan, in order that, if they should see the savages beginning disorder, they might attack them in the rear, when their attention was turned elsewhere. [9] But although the Limigantes knew that these plans were being hastened, yet they stood with bared heads, as if composing nothing save entreaties, [p. 531] but meditating deep in their hearts quite other things than their attitude and their words suggested. [10] And when the emperor was seen on the high tribunal and was already preparing to deliver a most mild address, intending to speak to them as future obedient subjects, one of their number, struck with savage madness, hurling his shoe at the tribunal, shouted “Marha, marha” (which is their warcry), and the rude crowd following him suddenly raised a barbarian banner and with savage howls rushed upon the emperor himself. [11] He, looking down from his high place and seeing everything filled with a mob running about with missiles, and death already imminent from their drawn swords and javelins, in the midst as he was of the enemy and of his own men, and with nothing to indicate whether he was a general or a common soldier, since there was no time for hesitation or delay mounted a swift horse and galloped off at full speed. [12] However, a few of his attendants, while they were trying to keep off the savages, who poured upon them like a stream of fire, were either wounded to the death or trampled down by the mere weight of those who rushed over them; and the royal seat with its golden cushion was seized without resistance. [13] But when presently it was heard that the emperor had all but been drawn into extreme peril and was not yet on safe ground, the soldiers considered it their first duty to aid him (for they thought him not yet free from danger of death); so, with greater confidence because of their contempt of the enemy, although the attack was so [p. 533] sudden that they were only partly armed, with a loud battle cry they plunged into the bands of the savages, who were regardless of their lives. [14] And so eagerly did our forces rush forth in their desire to wipe out the disgrace by valour, at the same time venting their wrath on the treacherous foe, that they butchered everything in their way, trampling under foot without mercy the living, as well as those dying or dead; and before their hands were sated with slaughter of the savages, the dead lay piled in heaps. [15] For the rebels were completely overthrown, some being slain, others fleeing in terror in all directions; and a part of them, who hoped to save their lives by vain entreaties, were cut down by repeated strokes. And after all had been killed and the trumpets were sounding the recall, some of our men also, though few, were found among the dead, either trampled under foot in the fierce attack or, when they resisted the fury of the enemy and exposed their unprotected sides, destroyed by the fatal course of destiny. [16] But conspicuous above the rest was the death of Cella, tribune of the Targeteers, who at the beginning of the fight was first to rush into the thick of the Sarmatian forces. [17] After this cruel carnage Constantius, having made such arrangements for the safety of the frontiers as considerations of urgency recommended, returned to Sirmium after taking vengeance on a treacherous foe. Then, having quickly attended to what the pressing necessities of the time required, he set out from there and went to Constantinople, in order that being now nearer the Orient he might remedy the disaster which he had suffered at Amida, [p. 535] and by supplying the army there with reinforcements might with an equally strong force check the inroads of the Persian king; for it was clear that the latter (unless the will of heaven and the supreme efforts of many men repelled him) would leave Mesopotamia behind and seek a wider field for his arms.
1 xvii. 12, 18.
2 He was a Syrian from Berytus, who came to Rome and filled all the grades of rank up to the prefecture. He was noted for his energy, his eloquence, and his high character.
3 The Danube; usually its lower course, but used also of the whole river.
4 I.e. they would rather contribute money than personal service or recruits.
5 It was in fact this hope that led the Romans to allow the Goths to cross the Danube, and thus brought on the defeat at Adrianople in 378; see xxxi., 4, 4, pro militari supplemento quod provinciatim annuum pendebatur, thesauris accederet auri cumulus magnus.
6 A city of Pannonia.
Ammianus Marcellinus. With An English Translation. John C. Rolfe, Ph.D., Litt.D. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1935-1940.
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