Note 034
From Chapter 31 of the Decline & Fall

It is incumbent on me to explain the liberties which I have taken with the text of Ammianus.

1. I have melted down into one piece the sixth chapter of the fourteenth and the fourth of the twenty-eighth book.
2. I have given order and connection to the confused mass of materials.
3. I have softened some extravagant hyperboles and pared away some superfluities of the original.
4. I have developed some observations which were insinuated rather than expressed.

With these allowances my version will be found, not literal indeed, but faithful and exact.