E05250: In the 380s, Ammianus Marcellinus in his Res Gestae mentions the Roman commander, Sabinianus, who, while preparing for the war against the Persians visited tombs in Edessa, most probably that of *Thomas the Apostle (S00060) and possibly local martyrs. Written in Latin in Rome.

Ammianus Marcellinus, Res gestae 18.7.7

Ammianus describes the preparations for the war against the Persians during the reign of Constantius II. In this context he writes thus:

Dum haec celerantur, Sabinianus inter rapienda momenta periculorum communium lectissimus moderator belli interneciui per Edessena sepulchra quasi fundata cum mortuis pace nihil formidans more uitae remissioris fluxius agens militari pyrrice sonantibus modulis | pro histrionicis gestibus in silentio summo delectabatur ominoso sane et incepto et loco, cum haec et huiusmodi factu dictuque tristia futuros praenuntiantia motus uitare optimum quemque debere saeculi progressione discamus.

'While these preparations were being hastened, Sabinianus, that splendid choice of a leader in a deadly war, when every moment should have been seized to avert the common dangers, amid the tombs of Edessa, as if he had nothing to fear when he had made his peace with the dead, and acting with the wantonness of a life free from care, in complete inaction was being entertained by his soldiers with a pyrrhic dance, in which music accompanied the gestures of the performers—conduct ominous both in itself and in its occasion, since we learn that these and similar things that are ill-omened in word and deed ought to be avoided by every good man as time goes on as foreboding coming troubles.'

Text: Seyfarth 1978. Translation: Rolfe, 1950, 453.