Ammianus Marcellinus, Rerum Gestarum
John C. Rolfe, Ph.D., Litt.D., Ed.

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[3] For never under the management of any other prefect up to the present time, as was generally agreed, had the northern provinces so abounded in all blessings, since by his kindly and skilful correction of abuses they were relieved of the great cost of the courier-service, which had closed homes without number, and there was considerable hope of freedom from the income tax. The dwellers in those parts might have lived thereafter happy and untroubled without grounds for complaint, had not later the most hated forms of taxation that could be imagined, criminally amplified by both tax-payers and tax-collectors, since the [p. 527] latter hoped to gain the protection of the governors in their efforts and the former hoped for safety if all were impoverished, resulted finally in proscriptions and the suicide of the wretched victims.