Book 28
1.1
While among the Persians (as I have already related)xxvii. 12, 11 ff. the perfidy of the king was arousing unexpected disturbances, and in the eastern regions wars were rising with renewed strength, somewhat more than sixteen years after the death of 366 A.D. Nepotianus,He fell in 350. He was the son of Eutropia, and assumed the purple in rivalry with Magnentius. See Vol. I, Introd., pp. xxv-xxvi. Bellona, raging throughout the Eternal City, set all ablaze, being aroused from insignificant beginnings to lamentable massacres; and I could wish that everlasting silence had consigned these to oblivion, lest haply at some time similar crimes should be attempted, which might do more harm from their general example and precedent than through the offences themselves.
1.2
And although, after long consideration of various circumstances, well-grounded dread restrained me from giving a minute account of this series of bloody deeds, yet I shall, relying on the better morals of the present day, set forth briefly such of them as are worthy of notice and I shall not be sorry to tell concisely what I have feared from events of antiquity.
