10. Meanwhile the wicked fury of bands of robbers raged through Gaul to the injury of many persons; since they occupied the most frequented roads, and without any hesitation seized upon everything valuable which came in their way. Besides many other persons who were the victims of these treacherous attacks, Constantianus, the tribune of the stable, was attacked by a secret ambuscade and slain; he was a relation of Valentinian, and the brother of Cerealis and Justina.
11. In other countries, as if the Furies were stirring up similar evils to afflict us on every side, the Maratocupreni, those most cruel banditti, spread their ravages in every direction. They were the natives of a town of the same name in Syria, near Apamea; very numerous, marvellously skilful in every kind of deceit, and an object of universal fear, because, under the character of merchants or soldiers of high rank, they spread themselves quietly over the country, and then pillaged all the wealthy houses, villages, and towns which came in their way.
12. Nor could any one guard against their unexpected attacks; since they fell not upon any previously selected victim, but in places in various parts, and at great distances, and carried their devastations wherever the wind led them. For which reason the Saxons were feared beyond all other enemies, because of the suddenness of their attacks. They then, in bands of sworn comrades, destroyed the riches of many persons; and being under the impulse of absolute fury, they committed the most mournful slaughters, being not less greedy of blood than of booty. Nevertheless, that I may not, by entering into too minute details, impede the progress of my history, it will be sufficient to relate one destructive device of theirs.
13. A body of these wicked men assembled in one place, pretending to be the retinue of a receiver of the revenue, or of the governor of the province. In the darkness of the evening they entered the city, while the crier made a mournful proclamation, and attacked with swords the house of one of the nobles, as if he had been proscribed and sentenced to death. They seized all his valuable furniture, because his servants, being utterly bewildered by the suddenness of the danger, did not defend the house; they slew several of them, and then before the return of daylight withdrew with great speed.
14. But being loaded with a great quantity of plunder, since from their love of booty they had left nothing behind, they were intercepted by a movement of the emperor's troop, and were cut off and all slain to a man. And their children, who were at the time very young, were also destroyed to prevent their growing up in the likeness of their fathers; and their houses which they had built with great splendour at the expense of the misery of others, were all pulled down. These things happened in the order in which they have been related.
III.
§ 1. But Theodosius, a general of very famous reputation, departed in high spirits from Augusta, which the ancients used to call Londinium, with an army which he had collected with great energy and skill; bringing a mighty aid to the embarrassed and disturbed fortunes of the Britons. His plan was to seek everywhere favourable situations for laying ambuscades for the barbarians; and to impose no duties on his troops of the performance of which he did not himself cheerfully set the example.
2. And in this way, while he performed the duties of a gallant soldier, and showed at the same time the prudence of an illustrious general, he routed and vanquished the various tribes in whom their past security had engendered an insolence which led them to attack the Roman territories; and he entirely restored the cities and the fortresses which through the manifold disasters of the time had been injured or destroyed, though they had been originally founded to secure the tranquillity of the country.
3. But while he was pursuing this career, a great crime was planned which was likely to have resulted in serious danger, if it had not been crushed at the very beginning.
4. A certain man named Valentine, in Valeria of Pannonia, a man of a proud spirit, the brother-in-law of Maximin, that wicked and cruel deputy, who afterwards became prefect, having been banished to Britain for some grave crime, and being a restless and mischievous beast, was eager for any kind of revolution or mischief, began to plot with great insolence against Theodosius, whom he looked upon as the only person with power to resist his wicked enterprise.