band of
armed men, boiling over with anger and gnashing his teeth, because,
often as he wished to sally forth, he was prevented from taking such a
step by the scantiness of the force which he had with him.

3. At last, after thirty days, the barbarians retired disappointed,
murmuring that they had been so vain and weak as to attempt the siege of
such a city. It deserves however to be remarked, as a most unworthy
circumstance, that when Julian was in great personal danger, Marcellus,
the master of the horse, who was posted in the immediate neighbourhood,
omitted to bring him any assistance, though the danger of the city
itself, even if the prince had not been there, ought to have excited his
endeavours to relieve it from the peril of a siege by so formidable an
enemy.

4. Being now delivered from this fear, Julian, ever prudent and active,
directed his anxious thoughts incessantly to the care of providing that,
after their long labours, his soldiers should have rest, which, however
brief, might be sufficient to recruit their strength. In addition to the
exhaustion consequent on their toils, they were distressed by the
deficiency of crops on the land, which through the frequent devastations
to which they had been exposed afforded but little suitable for human
food.

5. But these difficulties he likewise surmounted by his ever wakeful
diligence, and a more confident hope of future success opening itself to
his mind, he rose with higher spirits to accomplish his other designs.

V.

Sec. 1. In the first place (and this is a most difficult task for every
one), he imposed on himself a rigid temperance, and maintained it as if
he had been living under the obligation of the sumptuary laws. These
were originally brought to Rome from the edicts of Lycurgus and the
tables of laws compiled by Solon, and were for a long time strictly
observed. When they had become somewhat obsolete, they were
re-established by Sylla, who, guided by the apophthegms of Democritus,
agreed with him that it is Fortune which spreads an ambitious table, but
that Virtue is content with a sparing one.

2. And likewise Cato of Tusculum, who from his pure and temperate way of
life obtained the surname of the Censor, said with profound wisdom on
the same subject, "When there is great care about food, there is very
little care about virtue."

3. Lastly, though he was continually reading the little treatise which
Constantius, when sending him as his ste