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

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[10] These and similar actions kept growing more and more common, for the reason that Constantius, who was excessively timid and fearful for his life, always anticipated that a knife was at his throat, like that famous Sicilian despot, Dionysius, who because [p. 239] of that same infirmity actually taught his daughters to be barbers, in order that he might not trust the shaving of his cheeks to an outsider; and he surrounded the little house in which he used to sleep, with a deep trench and spanned it with a knockdown bridge, ¹ the planks and pins of which he took apart and carried with him when he went off to bed; and reassembled them at daybreak, when he was on his way out.