In the year 1118 from the founding of the City, Valentinian, the thirty-eighth, was made emperor at Nicaea by consent of the soldiers, and remained in that office for eleven years.
1 Anno ab urbe condita MCXVIII Valentinianus tricesimus octauus apud Nicaeam consensu militum imperator creatus est mansitque in eo annis undecim.
When, as a Christian of undiminished faith, he was serving under the military oath as tribune of the Scutarii under Julian Augustus, he was ordered by that sacrilegious emperor either to sacrifice to idols or to leave the service; and, knowing in faith that the judgements of God are heavier and his promises better, he departed of his own accord.
2 qui cum Christianus integra fide sacramentum militiae gereret sub Iuliano Augusto tribunus scutariorum, iussus ab imperatore sacrilego aut immolare idolis aut militia excedere, fideliter sciens et grauiora Dei esse iudicia et meliora promissa, sponte discessit.
So, after a short interval, Julian having been killed and Jovian soon dead, he who had lost his tribunate for the name of Christ received the empire, by Christ’s repayment, in the place of his persecutor.
3 ita parua interiecta mora Iuliano interfecto ac mox Iouiano mortuo qui pro nomine Christi amiserat tribunatum, retribuente Christo in locum persecutoris sui accepit imperium:
He afterwards made his brother Valens a partner in the empire, and killed the tyrant Procopius and later many of his followers.1
4 qui postea fratrem suum Valentem participem fecit imperii, Procopium tyrannum pluresque postea satellites eius occidit.
1Procopius rose against Valens in the East (365–366) and was defeated and executed by Valens, not by Valentinian.
An earthquake throughout the whole world also so stirred up and shook the sea that, as the sea poured back over the neighbouring parts of the low-lying lands, very many cities of the islands are reported to have been shaken, undermined and destroyed.
5 terrae motus per totum orbem factus ita turbatum quoque pelagus excussit, ut per uicinas terrarum campestrium partes refuso mari plurimae insularum urbes concussae et subrutae perisse referantur.
Valens, baptized and persuaded by the bishop Eudoxius, a champion of the Arian doctrine, fell away into a most savage heresy; but he long concealed his malignant hostility, and did not join power to will so long as he was held in check by the authority of his brother while he lived.
6 Valens ab Eudoxio episcopo, Arriani dogmatis assertore, et baptizatus et persuasus, in saeuissimam haeresim declinauit; sed malignam insectationem diu texit nec uoluntati potestatem admiscuit, quoad uiuentis fratris auctoritate conpressus est.
For he considered, in regard to him, how great a force for avenging the faith could be exerted as emperor by one who once, as a soldier, had shown such constancy in keeping it.
7 contemplabatur enim de eo, quantam uim in ulciscenda fide imperator posset exerere, qui tantam constantiam pro retinenda quondam miles habuisset.
In the third year of their reign Gratian, the son of Valentinian, was made emperor. In the same year, at Arras, real wool fell from the clouds mingled with rain.
8 Horum anno imperii tertio Gratianus Valentiniani filius imperator est factus. eodem anno apud Atrebatas uera lana de nubibus pluuiae mixta defluxit.
Moreover Athanaric, king of the Goths, persecuted the Christians among his people most cruelly, and raised very many barbarians, slain for their faith, to the crown of martyrdom; very many of them, however, fled for the confession of Christ to Roman soil, not fearfully, as if to enemies, but confidently, because they went to brothers.
9 Praeterea Athanaricus rex Gothorum Christianos in gente sua crudelissime persecutus, plurimos barbarorum ob fidem interfectos ad coronam martyrii sublimauit, quorum tamen plurimi in Romanum solum non trepidi, uelut ad hostes, sed certi, quia ad fratres, pro Christi confessione fugerunt.
Valentinian crushed the Saxons — a nation living on the shores of the Ocean and in impassable marshes, terrible for its courage and agility — on the very borders of the Franks, as they were planning, with a great mass of men, an inroad dangerous to the Roman frontiers.
10 Valentinianus Saxones, gentem in oceani litoribus et paludibus inuiis sitam, uirtute atque agilitate terribilem, periculosam Romanis finibus eruptionem magna mole meditantes in ipsis Francorum finibus oppressit.
There appeared also the new name of a new enemy, the Burgundians, who, it is said, more than eighty thousand strong in arms, settled on the bank of the river Rhine.
11 Burgundionum quoque nouorum hostium nouum nomen, qui plus quam octoginta milia, ut ferunt, armatorum ripae Rheni fluminis insederunt.
They say that these, once posted in camps by Drusus and Tiberius, the adopted sons of Caesar, after inner Germany had been subdued, grew together into a great nation, and so took their very name from their work, because people commonly call the dwellings set up at frequent intervals along the frontier burgi; and that their band is very strong and destructive is witnessed to this day by the Gallic provinces, where they remain in possession of the land they have seized —2
12 hos quondam subacta interiore Germania a Druso et Tiberio, adoptiuis filiis Caesaris, per castra dispositos in magnam coaluisse gentem atque ita etiam nomen ex opere praesumpsisse, quia crebra per limitem habitacula constituta burgos uulgo uocant, eorumque esse praeualidam et perniciosam manum Galliae hodieque testes sunt, in quibus praesumpta possessione consistunt;
2The derivation of the Burgundians’ name from burgi is folk etymology. Drusus and Tiberius were Augustus’s stepsons; only Tiberius was adopted, in AD 4, long after Drusus’s death.
although by the providence of God they have all now become Christians of the catholic faith, and, having received our clergy, to whom they are obedient, they live gently, mildly and harmlessly, treating the Gauls not as their subjects but truly as Christian brothers.
13 quamuis prouidentia Dei Christiani omnes modo facti catholica fide nostrisque clericis, quibus oboedirent, receptis blande mansuete innocenterque uiuant, non quasi cum subiectis Gallis sed uere cum fratribus Christianis.
In the eleventh year of his reign, when the Sarmatians had spread themselves through the Pannonian provinces and were laying them waste, Valentinian, while preparing war against them, was choked at the town of Brigetio by a sudden effusion of blood, which in Greek is called apoplexy, and died.
14 Anno autem undecimo imperii sui Valentinianus, cum Sarmatae sese per Pannonias diffudissent easque uastarent, bellum in eos parans apud Brigitionem oppidum subita effusione sanguinis, quod Graece apoplexis uocatur, suffocatus et mortuus est.
After him his son Gratian held the empire of the west, his uncle Valens being established in the regions of the east; and he made his brother Valentinian, still quite a small boy, a partner in the empire.
15 Post quem Gratianus filius occidentis imperium tenuit, Valente patruo in orientis partibus constituto; Valentinianum etiam, fratrem suum paruum admodum, socium creauit imperii.