Kitap 29
1.18
Therefore Valens also deserved excuse for taking every precaution to protect his life, which treacherous foes were trying in haste to take from him. But it was inexcusable that, with despotic anger, he was swift to assail with malicious persecution guilty and innocent under one and the same law, making no distinction in their deserts; so that while there was still doubt about the crime, the emperor had made up his mind about the penalty, and some learned that they had been condemned to death before knowing that they were under suspicion.
1.19
This persistent purpose of his increased, spurred on as it was both by his own greed and that of persons who frequented the court at that time, and opened the way to fresh desires, and if any mention of mercy was made—which rarely happened—called it slackness. These men through their bloodthirsty flatteries perverted in the worst possible direction the character of a man who carried death at the tip of his tongue,Cf. xviii. 3, 7, vitae potestatem et necis in acie linguae portantem. and blew everything down with an untimely hurricane, hastening to overturn utterly the richest houses.
