Book 27
6.2
For as prefect of the city,This was later. He was proconsul in 371 and 372, and city prefect in 388. in the administration of which office he died, through fear of the precarious situation of the tyrant,Maximus, who slew Gratian and ruled for five years. His rise and fall are vividly described by Kipling in Puck of Pooke’s Hill. through whose choice he had risen to that high position as if for the lack of worthy men, he was compelled to assume the appearance of mildness and clemency.
6.3
Against these Gauls some with higher aims strove in the cause of Severus, then commander of the infantry, as a man fitted for attaining that rank; and, although he was strict and feared, yet he was more endurable and in every way to be preferred to the aforenamed aspirant.
6.4
But while these designs were being agitated to no purpose, the emperor was restored with the help of numerous remedies; and observing that he was hardly yet rescued from the danger of death,And so might be left without a successor. he purposed to bestow the imperial insignia upon his son Gratianus, who had by this time nearly reached the age of puberty.He was nine years old.
