Page:Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus.djvu/411

 fighting for the place of their birth, as they had often found her to be before. Both nobles and common people joined in this supplication; but they spoke in vain as to the winds, the emperor fearing the crime of perjury, as he pretended, though in reality the object of his fear was very different.

3. Then a man of the name of Sabinus, eminent among his fellow-citizens both for his fortune and birth, replied with great fluency that Constantius too was at one time defeated by the Persians in the terrible strife of fierce war, that afterwards he fled with a small body of comrades to the unguarded station of Hibita, where he lived on a scanty and uncertain supply of bread which was brought him by an old woman from the country; and yet that to the end of his life he lost no territory; while Jovian, at the very beginning of his reign, was yielding up the wall of his provinces, by the protection of which barrier they had hitherto remained safe from the earliest ages.

4. But as he could not prevail on the emperor, who persisted obstinately in alleging the obligation of his oath, presently, when Jovian, who had for some time refused the crown which was offered to him, accepted it under a show of compulsion, an advocate, named Silvanus, exclaimed boldly, "May you, O emperor, be so crowned in the rest of your cities." But Jovian was offended at his words, and ordered the whole body of citizens to quit the city within three days, in despair as they were at the existing state of affairs.

5.  Accordingly, men were appointed to compel obedience to this order, with threats of death to every one who delayed his departure; and the whole city was a scene of mourning and lamentation, and in every quarter nothing was heard but one universal wail, matrons tearing their hair when about to be driven from their homes, in which they had been born and brought up, the mother who had lost her children, or the wife her husband, about to be torn from the place rendered sacred by their shades, clinging to their doorposts, embracing their thresholds, and pouring forth floods of tears.

6. Every road was crowded, each person straggling away as he could. Many, too, loaded themselves with as much of their property as they thought they could carry, while