Kitap 28
1.46
For vying in bloody rivalry with Maximinus, as his leader,Ammianus uses antipilanus in the sense of antesignanus; for its usual meaning see xvi. 12, 20, note. he strove to outdo him in cutting the sinews of distinguished families, imitating Busiris of old, and Antaeus and PhalarisCf. xxvi. 10, 5; he had a brazen bull constructed, in which he burned his victims alive; the first of these was its inventor Perillus, the last Phalaris himself. to such a degree that he seemed to lack only the Agrigentine bull of the last-named.
1.47
Amid these and such acts so perpetrated a matron called Hesychia, who because of an attempted crime was committed to an official’s attendant to be guarded at his house, and was in fear of much cruel treatment, pressed her face in the feather bed on which she was lying and so stopped her nose and her breath and gave up the ghost.
1.48
There was added to these another no less cruel evil. For Eumenius and Abienus, both of senatorial rank, being accused under Maximinus of improper conduct with Fausiana, a woman of position, after the death of Victorinus, under whose protection they lived with less anxiety, terrified by Simplicius’ coming who with threats planned no less cruelty than Maximinus, fled to secret retreats.
