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emperor's treasury. Therefore, Valentinian, suspecting that there was not as much sent as there ought to have been as the proceeds of this traffic, confiscated a portion of his property.
And to aggravate the severity of this infliction, another circumstance happened about the same time which equally tended to his ruin. Amantius was a soothsayer of pre-eminent celebrity at that period, and having been accused by some secret informer of being employed by this same Hymetius to offer a sacrifice for some evil purpose, he was brought before a court of justice and put to the rack; but in spite of all his tortures, he denied the charge with steadfast resolution.
And as he denied it, some secret papers were brought from his house, among which was found a letter in the handwriting of Hymetius, in which he asked Amantius to propitiate the gods by some solemn sacrifices to engage them to make the disposition of the emperor favourable to him; and at the end of the letter were found some reproachful terms applied to the emperor as avaricious and cruel.
Valentinian learnt these facts from the report of some informers, who exaggerated the offence given, and with very unnecessary vigour ordered an inquiry to be made into the affair; and because Frontinus, the assessor of Hymetius, was accused of having been the instrument of drawing up this letter, he was scourged with rods till he confessed, and then he was condemned to exile in Britain. But Amantius was subsequently convicted of some capital crimes and was executed.
After these transactions, Hymetius was conducted to the town of Otricoli, to be examined by Ampelius, the prefect of the city, and deputy of Maximin; and when he was on the point of being condemned, as was manifest to every one, he judiciously seized an opportunity that was afforded to him of appealing to the protection of the emperor, and being protected by his name, he came off for the time in safety.
The emperor, however, when he was consulted on the matter, remitted it to the senate, who examined into the whole affair with justice, and banished him to Boæ, a village in Dalmatia, for which they were visited with the wrath of the emperor, who was exceedingly enraged when he heard that a man whom in his own mind he had condemned to death had been let off with a milder punishment.
These and similar transactions led every one to fear that the treatment thus experienced by a few was intended for all: and that these evils should not, by being concealed, grow greater and greater till they reached an intolerable height, the nobles sent a deputation consisting of Prætextatus, formerly a prefect of the city, Venustus, formerly deputy, and Minervius, who had been a consular governor, to entreat the emperor not to allow the punishments to exceed the offences, and not to permit any senator to be exposed to the torture in an unprecedented and unlawful manner.
But when these envoys were admitted into the council chamber, Valentinian denied that he had ever given such orders, and insisted that the charges made against him were calumnies. He was, however, refuted with great moderation by the prætor Eupraxius; and in consequence of this freedom, the cruel injunction that had been issued, and which had surpassed all previous examples of cruelty, was amended.