Page:Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus.djvu/452

440 5. After him the prefect of the city was Lampadius, who had been prefect of the prætorium, a man of such boundless arrogance, that he grew very indignant if he were not praised even when he spat, as if he did that with more grace than any one else; but still a man of justice, virtue, and economy.

6. When as prætor he was celebrating some splendid games, and giving abundant largesses, being unable to bear the tumult of the populace, which was often urgent to have gifts distributed to those who were unworthy, in order to show his liberality and his contempt for the multitude, he sent for a crowd of beggars from the Vatican, and enriched them with great presents.

7. But, not to digress too much, it will be sufficient to record one instance of his vanity, which, though of no great importance, may serve as a warning to judges. In every quarter of the city which had been adorned at the expense of different emperors he inscribed his own name, and that, not as if he were the restorer of old works, but their founder. This same fault is said to have characterized the emperor Trajan, from which the people in jest named him "The Pellitory of the wall."

8. While he was prefect he was disturbed by frequent commotions, the most formidable being when a vast mob of the lowest of the people collected, and with firebrands and torches would have burnt his house near the baths of Constantine, if they had not been driven away by the prompt assistance of his friends and neighbours, who pelted them with stones and tiles from the tops of the houses.

9.  And he himself, being alarmed at a sedition, which on this occasion had become so violent, retired to the Mulvian bridge (which the elder Scaurus is said to have built), and waited there till the discontent subsided, which indeed had been excited by a substantial grievance.

10. For when he began to construct some new buildings, he ordered the cost to be defrayed, not from the customary sources of revenue, but if iron, or lead, or copper, or anything of that kind was required, he sent officers who, pretending to try the different articles, did in fact seize them without paying any price for them. This so enraged the poor, since they suffered repeated losses from such a