The Roman History · Amm. 26.6.18

Therefore when Procopius ascended the tribunal, and when, as all seemed thunderstruck and bewildered, even the gloomy silence was terrible, thinking (or, indeed, expecting) that he had only found a shorter way to death, trembling so as to be unable to speak, he stood for some time in silence. Presently when he began, with a broken and languid voice, to say a few words, in which he spoke of his relationship to the imperial family, he was met at first with but a faint murmur of applause from those whom he had bribed; but presently he was hailed by the tumultuous clamours of the populace in general as emperor, and hurried off to the senate-house, where he found none of the nobles, but only a small number of the rabble of the city; and so he went on with speed, but in an ignoble style, to the palace.

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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