Page:Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus.djvu/427

 they were entitled to regular fixed presents, but received gifts of inferior value; which, in great indignation, they threw away as utterly beneath them. For this they were roughly treated by Ursatius, a man of a passionate and cruel temper, who at that time was master of the offices; and when they returned and related, with considerable exaggeration, how they had been treated, they roused the anger of their savage countrymen as if they had been despised and insulted in their persons.

8. About the same time, or not much later, Procopius attempted a revolution in the east; and both these occurrences were announced to Valentinian on the same day, the 1st of November, as he was on the point of making his entry into Paris.

9. He instantly sent Dagalaiphus to make head against the Allemanni, who, when they had laid waste the land nearest to them, had departed to a distance without bloodshed. But with respect to the measures necessary to crush the attempt of Procopius before it gained any strength, he was greatly perplexed, being made especially anxious by his ignorance whether Valens were alive or dead, that Procopius thus attempted to make himself master of the empire.

10. For Equitius, as soon as he heard the account of the tribune Antonius, who was in command of the army in the interior of Dacia, before he was able to ascertain the real truth of everything, brought the emperor a plain statement of what had taken place.

11. On this Valentinian promoted Equitius to the command of a division, and resolved on retiring to Illyricum to prevent a rebel who was already formidable from overrunning Thrace and then carrying an hostile invasion into Pannonia. For he was greatly terrified by recollecting recent events, considering how, not long before, Julian, despising an emperor who had been invariably successful in every civil war, before he was expected or looked for, passed on from city to city with incredible rapidity.

12. But his eager desire to return was cooled by the advice of those about him, who counselled and implored him not to expose Gaul to the barbarians, who were threatening it; nor to abandon on such a pretence provinces which were in need of great support. And then prayers