Haec implacabilitas causae quidem piissimae, sed victoriae foedioris, innocentes tortoribus exposuit multos, vel sub eculeo locavit incurvos, aut ictu carnificis torvi substravit: quibus (si pateretur natura), vel denas animas profundere praestabat in pugna, quam lateribus fodicatis, omni culpa immunis, fortunis gementibus universis, quasi laesae maiestatis luere poenas, dilaniatis ante corporibus, quod omni est tristius morte.
This implacability in a cause which was most just, but where victory brought shame, delivered many innocent victims to the torturers, either placing them on the rack until they were bowed down or exposing them to the sword-stroke of a cruel executioner. It would have been better for them (if nature allowed it), to lose even ten lives in battle, rather than though free from all blame, with lacerated sides, amid general groans to suffer punishment for alleged treason, with their bodies first mutilated, a thing which is more awful than any death.
final_alignments\Ammianus_Marcellinus_Book26.json