Book 27
7.2
Therefore he was displaced by Vulcatius Rufinus, a man excellent in all respects, who seemed to be displaying the crown of an honoured old age,Cf. Cic., DeSen. 17, 61, apexest autemsenectutis auctoritas. except that he never let slip a favourable opportunity for gain, if there was hope of concealment.
7.3
As soon as he gained the imperial ear, he brought it about that Orfitus, a former prefect of Rome, was freed from banishment,Cf. 3, 2. and, after restoration of his lost patrimony, was restored to his home.
7.4
Valentinian was known to be a cruel man, and although in the early part of his reign, in order to lessen his reputation for harshness, he sometimes strove to keep his savage impulses under his mind’s control, yet the fault, as yet lurking and postponed, little by little broke forth without restraint and caused the destruction of many men; and was increased by fierce outbreaks of hot anger. For the philosophers define anger as a long-continued, sometimes permanent, ulcer of the mind, usually caused by weakness of the intellect; and they give for their opinion the plausible ground that the sickly are more inclined to anger than the sound, women than men, the old than the young, and the wretched than the fortunate.Cf. Sen., De Ira, i. 13, 5; ii. 19, 4.
