The Lawlessness and Greed of Licinius

Such were the decrees of Licinius. But why should I list his new laws about marriage, or those about the dying, by which he dared to abolish the ancient and wisely established laws of the Romans and bring in certain barbarous and cruel rules in their place, inventing a thousand pretexts for oppressing his subjects? That is why he devised a new method of measuring land, by which he counted the smallest plot as larger than it really was, out of an insatiable desire for gain. That is also why he kept on the registers the names of country people who were no longer alive and had long been counted among the dead, getting himself a shameful profit by this trick. His meanness had no limit and his greed could not be satisfied. So when he had filled all his treasuries with gold and silver and boundless wealth, he bitterly lamented his poverty and suffered, as it were, the torments of Tantalus. But why should I mention how many innocent people he punished with exile, how much property he confiscated, how many men of noble birth and good character he imprisoned, whose wives he handed over to be shamefully abused by his debauched slaves, and how many married women and virgins he himself violated, though he was already feeling the weakness of old age? I need not dwell on these things, since the enormity of his last actions makes the earlier ones seem trifling and of little account. [a]