leep,
as he affirmed, to accuse any innocent person, though he should be
tortured till he was brought to the very point of death, he neither
informed against, nor even named any one; but, with reference to the
usurpation of Silvanus, he invariably asserted that he had been driven
to contemplate that act, not out of ambition, but from sheer necessity;
and he proved this assertion by evident arguments.

3. For he adduced one important excuse, which was established by the
testimony of many persons, that, five days before he assumed the ensigns
of imperial authority, he addressed the soldiers, while distributing
their pay to them, in the name of Constantius, exhorting them to prove
always brave and loyal. From which it was plain that if he had then been
thinking of seizing on a loftier fortune, he would have given them this
money as if it had proceeded from himself.

4. After Proculus, Poemenius was condemned and put to death: he who,
as we have mentioned before,[45] when the Treveri had shut their gates
against Caesar Decentius, was chosen to defend that people. After him,
Asclepiodotus, and Luto, and Maudio, all Counts, were put to death, and
many others also, the obdurate cruelty of the times seeking for these
and similar punishments with avidity.

VII.

Sec. 1. While the fatal disturbances of the state multiplied these general
slaughters, Leontius, who was the governor of Rome itself, gave many
proofs of his deserving the character of an admirable judge; being
prompt in hearing cases, rigidly just in deciding them, and merciful by
nature, although, for the sake of maintaining lawful authority, he
appeared to some people to be severe. He was also of a somewhat amorous
temperament.

2. The first pretext for exciting any sedition against him was a most
slight and trumpery one. For when an order had been issued to arrest a
charioteer, named Philoromus, the whole populace followed him, as if
resolved to defend something of their own, and with terrible violence
assailed the prefect, presuming him to be timorous. But he remained
unmoved and upright, and sending his officers among the crowd, arrested
some and punished them, and then, without any one venturing to oppose
him, or even to murmur, condemned them to banishment.

3. A few days later the populace again became excited to its customary
frenzy, and alleging as a grievance the scarcity of wine, assembled at
the well-known place called Septemzodium, where the Emper