The Roman History · Amm. 28.1.10

Now, therefore, that he had an opportunity of doing injury, Maximin displayed the innate ferocity which was implanted in his cruel heart, just as wild beasts exhibited in the amphitheatre often do when at length released from their cages. And, as this affair was represented first in various ways, as if in a kind of prelude, and some persons with their sides lacerated named certain nobles, as if by means of their clients and other low-born persons known as criminals and informers, they had employed various artifices for injuring them. This infernal delegate, carrying his investigations to an extravagant length, presented a malicious report to the emperor, in which he told him that such atrocious crimes as many people had committed at Rome could not be investigated nor punished without the severest penalties.

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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