Valentinian, despite maintaining the stability of Roman…

Valentinian, despite maintaining the stability of Roman rule in Africa, as well as in Britain and Gaul, gains a reputation for irritability and cruelty, frequently installing thuggish administrators who ruthlessly oppress the provincials.

Valentinian had at first been benevolent to the Senate of Rome and supervised the provisioning of the city.

However, beginning in 369, under the influence of Maximinus, the prefect of Gaul, he initiates a period of terror, which strikes the great senatorial families.

Maximinus, a Pannonian native whose family was of Carpic origin and whose father was an accountant in the provincial government office of Pannonia Valeria, had studied law, practiced as an attorney, and later been appointed to the governor of Corsica, Sardinia and Tuscia.

Becoming prefectus annonae in Rome, Maximinus used this important position to launch a witch-hunt against the Roman senatorial aristocracy.

At first he also keeps his gubernatorial office because his successor is slow to arrive.

He makes his name prosecuting members of the Roman aristocracy on charges of witchcraft, encouraged by emperor Valentinian, whose prejudice against the Roman nobility brings the two men close together.

The praefectus urbi of Rome, Olybrius, a member of the senatorial aristocracy, is ill and weak, so Maximinus takes the chance to seize the judicial authority.

Historian Ammianus Marcellinus, who gives a detailed description about these unjust trials in the twenty-eighth book of his work, calls Maximinus a "wild beast" and "diabolic inquisitor".

After he gains the consent of the emperor Maximinus becomes excessively confident, and "walked on the streets of the city almost dancing like a brahmin."

The famous victims of Maximinus' witch hunt are Marinus (attorney), Cethegeus (senator), the young Lollianus (son of the former praefectus Lampadius), two noblewomen, Claritas and Flaviana, Paphius and Cornelius (senators), Campensis (haruspex) and others.

All of them have been tortured to extort their "confessions".

Maximinus prosecutes Hymetius, the former proconsul of Africa province, but the man appeals to the emperor.

Valentinianus hands over the case to the Senate which only sends Hymetius into exile to the great rage of the emperor.

According to Marcellinus a string was attached to the side window of the praetorial office of Maximinus, where the anonymous informers could have hooked their denunciations in a letter.

Maximinus also employs many spies.

Maximinus' brother in law, Valentinus, commits an unrecorded but very serious crime in 369.

Maximinus is able to have Valentinus' sentence commuted from execution to exile and he is sent to Britain, where he begins planning a revolt that has to be put down by Count Theodosius.