Paulus Catena
one of the ministers of the tyranny of the court under the emperor Constantius II. He was a native either of Hispania or Dacia (comp. Amm. Marc. 14.5, 15.3), and held the office of notary. Ammianus describes him as a "smooth-faced" sycophant, who being sent into Britain, after the overthrow of Magnentius, treated the officers of the province with great cruelty, and enriched himself with their spoils. His cruelty provoked Martinus, pro-praefect of the province, whom he had accused and thrown into fetters, to attempt his life; but the blow did not take effect. Paulus acquired his cognomen Catena, "the fetter," from the skill with which he wound the chains of falsehood and calumny round his victims. After the death of Constantius, A. D. 361, Paul and some other of the ministers of his cruelty were burnt alive by order of Julian the Apostate. (Amm. Marc. ll. cc. and 22.3.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.