Book 14
5.5
And he is even said to have given orders that no one who had ever been punished for these or similar offences should be given a new trial after a writ of condemnationThat is, a tablet on which the charge and the punishment were recorded. This was sometimes handed to the emperor by a judge, cf. Suet., Calig. 27, 1, sometimes issued by the emperor himself; see Amm. xiv. 7, 2; xix. 12, 9. had once been presented to him in the usual manner, which even the most inexorable emperors commonly allowed. And this fatal fault of cruelty, which in others sometimes grew less with advancing age, in his case became more violent, since a group of flatterers intensified his stubborn resolution.
5.6
Prominent among these was the state secretarySee Introd., p. xxx. Paulus, a native of Spain, a kind of viper, whose countenance concealed his character, but who was extremely clever in scenting out hidden means of danger for others. When he had been sent to Britain to fetch some officers who had dared to conspire with Magnentius, since they could make no resistance he autocratically exceeded his instructions and, like a flood, suddenly overwhelmed the fortunes of many, making his way amid manifold slaughter and destruction, imprisoning freeborn men and even degrading some with handcuffs; as a matter of fact, he patched together many accusations with utter disregard of the truth, and to him was due an impious crime, which fixed an eternal stain upon the time of Constantius.
