The Roman History (Res Gestae)

...would now be entirely unknown had he not intervened, or could only be viewed through weak and invalid conjectures, rather by the allusions of certain men than by their narrations. Moreover, it is incredible to tell how, before this century, having been defiled by an overly significant darkness and having fallen into an almost perpetual state of ill-health, he stumbled unhappily both in language and meaning, while others—because the rust of antiquity had either obscured them by corroding or had removed them from sight by diverting them—filled and stuffed them with their own touch rather than from legitimate monuments, tormenting Ammianus with a most miserable mangling. Nor could he be restored from that contagion until this very century; at the beginning of which, having sought medicine, as it were, from the same region from which almost all instruments of learning have drawn light—your happy Tuscany, Most Clement Prince—he began to emerge more purified. Then, indeed, his cause was not managed in a customary or light manner, but with prudent counsel and remarkable industry. For, so that he would not trust to the judgment of one man alone, but rather to whomever he might summon to the repetition of ancient reading, a tablet was suspended in the open, which exposed the notes transcribed from Your Royal manuscript and of singular fidelity to the sight of all. Thus, that false and widely circulated cento a literary work made up of quotations from other authors, which had ineptly substituted and disturbed the entire hand of the author, was marked by its departure and by a very conspicuous variety, almost inflicting shame upon learned men, so that they, attempting to consult Ammianus more sacredly and gently, might ignite their spirit toward the discovery of the hidden. With this banner first raised, when he was still in expectation of being received from the same hand in better splendor, he was intercepted in another region of the earth, detained and possessed at the Seine, and not otherwise than Julian the Emperor original: "Julianu Cæsar", referring to the Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate himself was once depressed there, he could not...