The Roman History · Amm. 22.4.2

For he might have been praised if he had retained a few who were moderate in their disposition, and of proved honesty and respectability. We must, indeed, confess that the greater part of them had nourished as it were such a seed-bed of all vices, which they spread abroad so as to infect the whole republic with evil desires, and did even more injury by their example than by the impunity which they granted to crimes.

Ammianus Marcellinus · translated by C. D. Yonge · 1911 reprint
C. D. Yonge translation (preface dated February 1862); G. Bell and Sons, 1911; Project Gutenberg #28587
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