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[5] He was born in Armenia of free parents, but when still very young he was kidnapped by hostile tribesmen in that neighbourhood, [p. 229] who gelded him and sold him to some Roman traders, who brought him to Constantine's palace. There, as he grew up, he gradually gave evidence of virtuous living and intelligence. He received as much training in letters as might suffice for one of that station; conspicuous for his remarkable keenness in devising and solving difficult and knotty problems, he had extraordinary powers of memory; he was eager to do kindnesses and full of sound counsel. And if the emperor Constans had listened to him in times past, when Eutherius had grown up and was already mature, and urged honourable and upright conduct upon him, he would have been guilty of no faults, or at least of only pardonable ones. 1

1 Text and meaning are uncertain. On the faults of Constans, cf. Aurel. Victor, 41, and Zosimus, ii. 42.

Ammianus Marcellinus. With An English Translation. John C. Rolfe, Ph.D., Litt.D. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1935-1940.

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