The Roman History · Amm. 30.4.2

With these and similar objects a great number of persons conspired together, being led by Modestus, the prefect of the prætorium, who was a complete slave to the wishes of the emperor's eunuchs, and who, under a specious countenance, concealed a rough disposition which had never been polished by any study of ancient virtue or literature, and who was continually asserting that to look into the minute details of private actions was beneath the dignity of the emperor. He thinking, as he said, that the examination of such matters had been imposed on the nobles to lower their dignity, abstained from all such matters himself, and opened the doors to plunder; which doors are now daily more and more opened by the depravity of the judges and advocates, who are all of the same mind, and who sell the interests of the poor to the military commanders, or the persons of influence within 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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