The Roman History · Amm. 31.10.21

About this time, while Frigeridus was with great wisdom devising many schemes likely to prove of advantage to the general safety, and was preparing to fortify the defiles of the Succi, to prevent the enemy (who, by the rapidity of their movements and their fondness for sallies, were always threatening the northern provinces like a torrent) from extending their inroads any further he was superseded by a count named Maurus, a man cruel, ferocious, fickle, and untrustworthy. This man, as we have related in our account of preceding transactions being one of Julian's body-guard to whom the defence of the palace was expressly committed, while that prince was doubting about accepting the imperial authority, took the chain from his own neck and offered it to him for a diadem.

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
Passage preview. Read in context for the complete text, notes and references.