In the year 1092 from the founding of the City, Constantius, the thirty-fifth, obtained the imperial power together with his brothers Constantine and Constans, and held it for twenty-four years. Among the successors of Constantine there was also Dalmatius Caesar, his brother’s son; but he was soon cut off by a faction of the soldiers.
1 Anno ab urbe condita MXCII Constantius tricensimus quintus cum Constantino et Constante fratribus suis adeptus imperium uiginti et quattuor annis tenuit. fuit inter successores Constantini et Dalmatius Caesar fratris filius, sed continuo militari factione deceptus est.
Meanwhile the devil’s ever-malignant assault upon the true God — which from the beginning of the world until now, spreading clouds of error, throws the unsteady hearts of men into confusion, away from the pure path of faith and religion — once it had ceased to persecute the Church of Christ through zeal for idolatry, now that Christian emperors were turning the supreme royal power to better ends, devised another contrivance by which to harass the Church of Christ through those very Christian emperors.
2 interea maligna semper aduersus Deum uerum diaboli insectatio, quae ab initio mundi usque ad nunc a sincero fidei religionisque tramite offusis errorum nebulis lubrica hominum corda perturbat, postquam Christianis imperatoribus summam regiae potestatis in meliora uertentibus Ecclesiam Christi zelo idololatriae persequi destitit, aliud machinamentum, quo per eosdem Christianos imperatores Christi Ecclesiam uexaret, inuenit.
So Arius, the author of a new error, and the rest of his disciples found ready access and an easy way into intimacy with the emperor Constantius. Constantius was persuaded to believe in certain grades within God; and he who had gone out through the door from the error of idolatry was led back into its bosom, as though through a back door, while he sought gods within God.1
3 fit igitur Arrio, noui erroris auctori, ceterisque discipulis ipsius ad familiaritatem Constantii imperatoris promptus aditus et facilis uia. suadetur Constantio, ut quosdam in Deo gradus credat, et qui per ianuam ab errore idololatriae fuerat egressus, rursum in sinum eius, dum in Deo deos quaerit, tamquam per pseudothyrum inducitur.
1Arius died in 336, the year before Constantius became emperor; it was his followers, led by Eusebius of Nicomedia, who won Constantius’s favour.
So, with perverse zeal, a deluded power was armed, and under the name of piety the force of persecution was set in motion. A contest arose over a new choice of name, so that the churches should belong to the Arians rather than to the catholics.
4 peruerso igitur zelo potestas armatur inlusa et sub nomine pietatis uis persecutionis agitatur. de noua nominis electione contenditur, ut Arrianorum potius ecclesiae quam catholicorum sint.
There followed a terrible earthquake, which levelled very many cities of the east to the ground. Constantine, while making war on his brother Constans, exposed himself to dangers with reckless insolence and was killed by his brother’s generals.
5 sequitur terrae motus horribilis, qui plurimas orientis urbes solo strauit. Constantinus dum Constantem fratrem bello insectatur, incauta petulantia periculis sese offerens, a ducibus eius occisus est.
Constans fought nine battles, with little success, against the Persians and Shapur, who had laid waste Mesopotamia. At the last, forced by the mutiny and indiscipline of his soldiers to join battle at night, he lost a victory all but won, and was defeated besides.2
6 Constans aduersus Persas et Saporem, qui Mesopotamiam uastauerat, nouem proeliis parum prospere decertauit. nouissime seditione atque intemperantia militum nocte adoriri pugnam coactus, patratam paene uictoriam insuper uictus amisit.
2Orosius confuses the brothers: it was Constantius II, ruler of the East, who fought Shapur II, and he who lost the night battle at Singara (344 or 348). Constans ruled the West.
Afterwards, when he had given himself up to intolerable vices and was buying the favour of the soldiers at the cost of the provincials’ suffering, he was killed through the treachery of Magnentius in a town called Helena, close to Spain.3
7 post cum se intolerandis uitiis dedisset ac poena prouincialium fauorem militum compararet, Magnentii dolis in oppido, cui Helena nomen est, in proximo Hispaniae interfectus est.
3Helena is Elne (Castrum Helenae), near Perpignan at the foot of the eastern Pyrenees; Constans was killed there in 350.
For Magnentius had seized the imperial power at Autun, and at once extended it through Gaul, Africa and Italy.
8 Magnentius enim apud Augustodunum arripuit imperium, quod continuo per Galliam Africam Italiamque porrexit.
In Illyricum, meanwhile, the soldiers made Vetranio, a man of great age, emperor for themselves — a man simple by nature and pleasant to all, but one who had never learned even the first elements of letters.
9 in Illyrico autem Vetranionem, aetate grandaeuum, imperatorem sibi milites creauerunt, uirum natura simplicem cunctisque iucundum, sed qui ne prima quidem umquam litterarum elementa didicisset.
And so, while the old emperor was practising — at times unwillingly — his first letters and the syllables of words, he was ordered by Constantius, who was then preparing war against Magnentius, burning to avenge his brother, to lay down the imperial power; and, casting off the purple along with his letters and content with the leisure of a private man, he dismissed palace and school together.
10 itaque cum primas litteras litterarumque syllabas imperator senex interdum inuitus meditaretur, a Constantio, qui tunc in Magnentium ultione fratris accensus bellum parabat, deponere iussus imperium, abiciens cum litteris purpuras contentusque priuatis feriis, palatium simul scholamque dimisit.
Next, at Rome, Nepotianus, the son of Constantine’s sister, relying on a band of gladiators, seized the imperial power; and since he was wicked, and hated by all on that account, he was crushed by the generals of Magnentius.
11 Nepotianus deinde Romae, Constantini sororis filius, gladiatorum manu fretus inuasit imperium: qui deinde cum inprobus ac per hoc inuisus cunctis esset, a Magnentianis ducibus oppressus est.
There followed that terrible war between Constantius and Magnentius, fought at the city of Mursa, in which the great destruction of Roman strength did harm even to later times.
12 sequitur bellum illud horribile inter Constantium Magnentiumque apud Mursam urbem gestum, in quo multa Romanorum uirium profligatio etiam in posterum nocuit.
Magnentius, however, was defeated and fled, and not long afterwards killed himself with his own hand at Lyon. His brother Decentius too, whom he had set over the Gallic provinces as Caesar, ended his life with a noose at Sens.
13 Magnentius tamen uictus aufugit ac non multo post apud Lugdunum propria se manu interfecit. Decentius quoque frater eiusdem, quem Caesarem Galliis praefecerat, apud Senonas laqueo uitam finiuit.
Constantius at once chose Gallus, his uncle’s son, as Caesar; and when he in turn behaved cruelly and tyrannically, Constantius killed him shortly after he had made him. Silvanus too, who was gaping after revolution throughout the Gallic provinces, he had promptly surrounded and crushed.
14 continuo Constantius Gallum, patrui filium, Caesarem legit: quem rursus crudeliter ac tyrannice agentem paulo post quam crearat occidit. Siluanum quoque, per Gallias rebus nouis inhiantem, mature circumueniendum opprimendumque curauit.
So, Silvanus having been killed, he made his cousin Julian, the brother of Gallus, Caesar and sent him to the Gallic provinces; and Julian Caesar most vigorously restored to their former state the Gallic provinces, which had been overthrown and oppressed by the enemy, routed a great multitude of the Alamanni with small forces, and bound the Germans back behind the Rhine.
15 igitur Siluano interfecto Iulianum patruelem suum, Galli fratrem, Caesarem creatum misit ad Gallias; itaque Iulianus Caesar euersas oppressasque ab hoste Gallias strenuissime in integrum restituit, Alamannorum paruis copiis magnam multitudinem fudit, Rheno Germanos reuinxit.
Elated by these successes, he usurped the dignity of Augustus, and soon, overrunning Italy and Illyricum, deprived Constantius, who was occupied with battles against the Parthians, of a part of his realm.4
16 his elatus successibus fastigium usurpauit Augusti et mox Italiam Illyricumque peruadens Constantium Parthicis proeliis occupatum regni parte priuauit.
4Orosius calls the Sasanian Persians Parthians, after the Arsacid dynasty they had overthrown in 224.
Constantius, on learning of Julian’s crime, abandoned his expedition against the Parthians, and while returning to civil war died on the way, between Cilicia and Cappadocia.
17 Constantius Iuliani scelere comperto dimissa expeditione Parthorum dum ad ciuile bellum reuertitur, in itinere inter Ciliciam Cappadociamque defunctus est.
Thus he who, having torn apart the peace and unity of the catholic faith and armed Christians against Christians, had rent the limbs of the Church in what I may call a civil war, wore out, spent and used up the whole time of his restless reign and the most troubled span of his life in civil wars, stirred up even by his own kinsmen and blood relations.
18 ita ille qui discissa pace et unitate fidei catholicae Christianos aduersum Christianos armans ciuili, ut ita dicam, bello Ecclesiae membra dilacerauerat, totum inquieti tempus imperii molestissimumque spatium uitae suae bellis ciuilibus etiam per propinquos et consanguineos excitatis exercuit exegit expendit.