Kitap 29
4.5
Then the generals,Here iudices is used of military officials. encouraged by the arrival of additional troops, encamped, with a view to a very short stay, since no one had a pack-animal or a tent, except the emperor, for whom a rug and a rough blanketCf. xvi. 5, 5. sufficed for such a shelter. Then, after delaying for a time on account of the darkness of night, as soon as the morning-star uprose, since the campaign called for haste, they advanced farther, led by guides who knew the roads; and a large force of cavalry was ordered to precede them under command of Theodosius, that nothing might be unobservedHere there is a lacuna of 3 1/2 lines. The general sense probably is, that the emperor went on to meet the king. . . . was lying at the time; but he was prevented by the continuous noise made by his men; for although he constantly commanded them to abstain from plundering and setting fires, he could not make them obey. For the crackling flames and the dissonant shouts awakened the king’s attendants, and suspecting what had happened, they placed him in a swift wagon and hid him in a narrow pass of the precipitous hills.
4.6
Valentinian was robbed of this glory,Of taking the king prisoner. not by his own fault or that of his generals, but by the indiscipline of the soldiers, which has often caused the Roman state heavy losses; so, after reducing the enemy’s territory to ashes for fifty miles,Some MSS. say five hundred. he returned sadly to Treves.
