Book 29
6.7
Surely at that time an irreparable crime would have been committed, to be numbered among the shameful disasters of Roman history; for the daughter of Constantius, when being conducted to marry Gratianus, was very nearly captured while she was taking food in a public villa called Pristensis, but (by the favour of the propitious godhead) Messalla, the governor of the province, was at hand and placed her in a state-carriageA vehicle at the disposal of the officials of the province, the city prefect, and other high dignitaries (iudices). and took her in all haste back to Sirmium, twenty-six miles away.
6.8
After the princess was saved by this fortunate chance from the danger of wretched slavery, which, if it had been impossible to ransom the captive, would have branded the state with the greatest disaster, the Quadi, in company with the Sarmatians, ranged more widely; and being peoples most skilled in rapine and brigandage, they drove off as booty human beings of both sexesFor secus cf. xvi. 11, 9. as well as cattle, exulting in the ashes of burned farmhouses and the sufferings of the slain inhabitants, whom they took by surprise and destroyed without any mercy.
