Page:Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus.djvu/441

 collected his forces at the approach of spring, Valens, having united Lupicinus's troops, which were a numerous body, to his own, marched with all speed towards Pessinus, which was formerly reckoned a town of Phrygia, but was now considered to belong to Galatia.

2. Having speedily secured it with a garrison, to prevent any unforeseen danger from arising in that district, he proceeded along the foot of Mount Olympus by very difficult passes to Lycia, intending to attack Gomoarius, who was loitering in that province.

3. Many vehemently opposed this project from this consideration, that his enemy, as has been already mentioned, always bore with him on a litter the little daughter of Constantius, with her mother Faustina, both when marching and when preparing for battle, thus exciting the soldiers to fight more resolutely for the imperial family, with which, as he told them, he himself was connected. So formerly, when the Macedonians were on the point of engaging in battle with the Illyrians, they placed their king, who was still an infant, in his cradle behind the line of battle, and the fear lest he should be taken prisoner made them exert themselves the more so as to defeat their enemies.

4. To counteract this crafty manoeuvre the emperor, in the critical state of his affairs, devised a sagacious remedy, and summoned Arbetio, formerly consul, but who was now living in privacy, to join him, in order that the fierce minds of the soldiers might be awed by the presence of a general who had served under Constantine. And it happened as he expected.

5. For when that officer, who was older in years than all around him, and superior in rank, showed his venerable gray hairs to the numbers who were inclined to violate their oaths, and accused Procopius as a public robber, and addressing the soldiers who followed his guilty leadership as his own sons and the partners of his former toils, entreated them rather to follow him as a parent known to them before as a successful leader than obey a profligate spendthrift who ought to be abandoned, and who would soon fall.

6. And when Gomoarius heard this, though he might have