l named Dames was accused by his wife
of certain trifling acts, of which, whether he was innocent or not is
uncertain; but Rufinus was his enemy, who, as we have mentioned, had
given information of some matters which had been communicated to him by
Gaudentius, the emperor's secretary, causing Africanus, then governing
Pannonia with the rank of a consul, to be put to death, with all his
friends. This Rufinus was now, for his devotion to the interests of the
emperor, the chief commander of the praetorian guard.

4. He, being given to talking in a boastful manner, after having
seduced that easily deluded woman (the wife of Dames) into an illicit
connection with him, allured her into a perilous fraud, and persuaded
her by an accumulation of lies to accuse her innocent husband of
treason, and to invent a story that he had stolen a purple garment from
the sepulchre of Diocletian, and, by the help of some accomplices, still
kept it concealed.

5. When this story had been thus devised in a way to cause the
destruction of many persons, Rufinus himself, full of hopes of some
advantage, hastened to the camp of the emperor, to spread his customary
calumnies. And when the transaction had been divulged, Manlius, at that
time the commander of the praetorian camp, a man of admirable integrity,
received orders to make a strict inquiry into the charge, having united
to him, as a colleague in the examination, Ursulus, the chief paymaster,
a man likewise of praiseworthy equity and strictness.

6. There, after the matter had been rigorously investigated according to
the fashion of that period, and when, after many persons had been put to
the torture, nothing was found out, and the judges were in doubt and
perplexity; at length truth, long suppressed, found a respite, and,
under the compulsion of a rigorous examination, the woman confessed that
Rufinus was the author of the whole plot, nor did she even conceal the
fact of her adultery with him. Reference was immediately made to the
law, and as order and justice required, the judges condemned them both
to death.

7. But as soon as this was known, Constantius became greatly enraged,
and lamenting Rufinus as if the champion of his safety had been
destroyed, he sent couriers on horseback express, with threatening
orders to Ursulus, commanding him to return to court. Ursulus,
disregarding the remonstrances of those who advised him to disobey,
hastened fearlessly to the presence; and having en