CHAPTER V

COMPULSORY ELEVATION OF GERMANUS

ON the refusal of their demands by the citizens, they leave Priscus there, and seizing Germanus, who at that time held the command in Phœnicia Libanensis, they elect him their own general and emperor, while he resisted and they were the more urgent; and a struggle thus arose, on the part of the one to escape compulsion, of the others to enforce their object. After they had menaced him with death unless he would embrace the offered charge, and he, on his part, eagerly embraced the alternative, disclaiming all fear and consternation, they proceeded to certain severities and methods of cruelty, which they thought he would not be able to bear; for they did not suppose that he would manifest greater endurance than the strength of nature and his time of life would warrant. By putting him to the trial at first cautiously and sparingly, they succeed in forcing him to accede to their demands, and solemnly to swear that he would be true to them. Thus they compelled him to be their ruler under rule, their subject sovereign, their master in thraldom. Then chasing from them the officers of every grade, they elect others in their place, openly reviling the imperial government. They treated provincials on the whole less harshly than the barbarians did, but in a manner very unlike allies or servants of the commonwealth: for they levied their provisions not according to stated measures or weight, and were not contented with the quarters assigned to them: but the will of each individual was a rule, and his caprice an established measure.