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[54] Doryphorianus, as had been ordered, hastened to Rome by long days' journeys, and at the beginning of his administration 1 cast about with great energy, to see by what act of violence he could without anyone's help destroy a senator of conspicuous lineage. And on learning that Aginatius had long since been found, and was under guard in his own villa, he arranged personally to examine him, and Anepsia as well, as the chief of the guilty persons, in the midst of the horrors of night, when men's minds are commonly dulled in the bonds of terrors: as among countless other instances is shown by Homer's Ajax, 2 who wished rather to die by daylight than endure the additional suffering of dread by night.

1 As vicarius.

2 Iliad, xvii. 645 ff.

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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