(BOOK 78, BOISSEVAIN.)

[Sidenote: A.D. 211 (a.u. 964)] [Sidenote:—1—] After this Antoninus secured the entire power. Nominally he ruled with his brother, but in reality alone and at once. With the enemy he came to terms, withdrew from their country, and abandoned the forts. But his own people he either dismissed (as Papinianus the prefect) or else killed (as Euodus, his nurse, Castor, and his wife Plautilla, and the latter's brother Plautius). In Rome itself he also executed a man who was renowned for no other reason than his profession, which made him very conspicuous. This was Euprepes, the charioteer; he killed him when the man dared to show enthusiasm for a cause that the emperor opposed. So Euprepes died in old age after having been crowned in an endless number of horse-races. He had won seven hundred and eighty-two of them,—a record equaled by none other.

Antoninus had first had the desire to murder his brother while his father was still alive, but had been unable to do so at that time because of Severus, or later, on the road, because of the legions. The men felt very kindly toward the younger son, especially because in appearance he was the very image of his father. But when Antoninus arrived in Rome, he got rid of this rival also. The two pretended to love and commend each other, but their actions proved quite the reverse to be true, and anybody could see that some catastrophe would result from their relations. This fact was recognized even prior to their reaching Rome. When it had been voted by the senate to sacrifice in behalf of their harmony both to the other gods and to Harmony herself, the assistants made ready a victim to be sacrificed to Harmony and the consul arrived to do the slaughtering; yet he could not find them, nor could the assistants find the consul. They spent nearly the whole night looking for each other, so that the sacrifice could not be performed on that occasion. The next day two wolves climbed the Capitol, but were chased away from that region: one of them was next encountered somewhere in the Forum, and the other was later slain outside the pomerium. This is the story about those two animals.

[Sidenote:—2—-] It was Antoninus's wish to murder his brother at the Saturnalia, but he was not able to carry out his intention. The danger had already grown too evident to be concealed. As a consequence, there were many violent meetings between the two,—both feeling that they were being plotted against,—and many precautionary measures were taken on both sides. As many soldiers and athletes, abroad and at home, day and night, were guarding Geta, Antoninus persuaded his mother to send for him and his brother and have them come along to her house with a view to being reconciled. Geta without distrust went in with him. When they were well inside, some centurions suborned by Antoninus rushed in a body. Geta on seeing them had run to his mother, and as he hung upon her neck and clung to her bosom and breasts he was cut down, bewailing his fate and crying out: "Mother that bore me, mother that bore me, help! I am slain!!"

[Sidenote: A.D. 212 (a.u. 965)] Tricked in this way, she beheld her son perishing by most unholy violence in her very lap, and, as it were, received his death into her womb whence she had borne him. She was all covered with blood, so that she made no account of the wound she had received in her hand. She might neither mourn nor weep for her son, although, untimely he had met so miserable an end (he was only twenty-two years and nine months old): on the contrary, she was compelled to rejoice and laugh as though enjoying some great piece of luck. All her words, gestures, and changes of color were watched with the utmost narrowness. She alone, Augusta, wife of the emperor, mother of emperors, was not permitted to shed tears even in private over so great a calamity.

[Sidenote:—3—] Antoninus, although it was evening, took possession of the legions after bawling all the way along the road that he had been the object of a plot and was in danger. On entering the fortifications, he exclaimed: "Rejoice, fellow-soldiers, for now I have a chance to benefit you!" Before they heard the whole story he had stopped their mouths with so many and so great promises that they could neither think nor speak anything decent. "I am one of you," he said, "it is on your account alone that I care to live, that so I may afford you much happiness. All the treasuries are yours." Indeed, he said this also: "I pray if possible to live with you, but if not, at any rate to die with you. I do not fear death in any form, and it is my desire to end my days in warfare. There should a man die, or nowhere!"

To the senate on the following day he made various remarks and after rising from his seat he went towards the door and said: "Listen to a great announcement from me. That the whole world may be glad, let all the exiles, who have been condemned on any complaint whatever in any way whatever, be restored to full rights." Thus did he empty the islands of exiles and grant pardon to the worst condemned criminals, but before long he had the isles full again.

[Sidenote:—4—] The Cæsarians and the soldiers that had been with Geta were suddenly put to death to the number of twenty thousand, men and women alike, wherever in the palace any of them happened to be. Antoninus slew also various distinguished men, among them Papinianus.

¶While the Pretorians accused Papianus (sic) and Patruinus [Footnote: This is Valerius Patruinus.] for certain actions, Antoninus allowed the complainants to kill them, and added the following remark: "I hold sway for your advantage and not for my own; therefore, I defer to you both as accusers and as judges."

He rebuked the murderer of Papinianus for using an axe instead of a sword to give the finishing stroke.

He had also desired to deprive of life Cilo, his nurse and benefactor, who had served as prefect of the city during his father's reign, whom he had also often called father. The soldiers sent against him plundered his silver plate, his robes, his money, and everything else that belonged to him. Cilo himself they conducted along the Sacred Way, making the palace their destination, where they prepared to give him his quietus. He had low slippers [Footnote: Reading [Greek: blahytast] in the place of the MS. [Greek: chlhapast]. This emendation is favored by Cobet (Mnemosyne, N.S., X, p. 211) and Naber (Mnemosyne, N.S., XVI, p. 113).] on his feet, since he had chanced to be in the bath when apprehended, and wore an abbreviated tunic. The men rent his clothing open and disfigured his face, so that the people and the soldiers stationed in the city made clamorous objections. Therefore Antoninus, out of respect and fear for them, met the party, and, shielding Cilo with his cavalry cloak,—he was wearing military garb,—cried out: "Insult not my father! Strike not my nurse!" The tribune charged with slaying him and the soldiers in his contingent lost their lives, nominally for making plots but really for not having killed their victim.

[Sidenote:—5—] [But Antoninus was so anxious to appear to love Cilo that he declared: "Those who have plotted against him have plotted against me." Commended for this by the bystanders, he proceeded: "Call me neither Hercules nor the name of any other god;" not that he was unwilling to be termed a god, but because he wished to do nothing worthy of a god. He was naturally capricious in all matters, and would bestow great honors upon people and then suddenly disgrace them, quite without reason. He would save those who least deserved it and punish those whom one would never have expected.

Julianus Asper was a man by no means contemptible, on account of his education and good sense as well. He exalted him, together with his sons, and after Asper had walked the streets surrounded by I don't know how many fasces he without warning insulted him outrageously and dismissed him to his native place [Footnote: I.e., Tusculum.] with abuse and in mighty trepidation. Lætus, too, he would have disgraced or even killed, had this man not been extremely sick. So the emperor before the soldiers called his sickness "wicked," because it did not allow him to display wickedness in one more case.

Again he made way with Thrasea Priscus, a person second to none in family or intelligence.

Many others also, previously friends of his, he put to death.]

[Sidenote:—6—]

"Nay, I could not recite nor give the names all over"

[Footnote: From Homer's Iliad, II, verse 488.] of the distinguished men whom he killed without any right. Dio, because the slain were very well known in those days, even makes a list of them. For me it suffices to say that he crushed the life out of everybody he chose, without exception,

"whether the man was guilty or whether he was not ";

[Footnote: From Homer's Iliad, XV, verse 137.] and that he simply mutilated Rome, by rendering it bereft of excellent men. [Antoninus was allied to three races. And he possessed not a single one of their good points, but included in himself all their vices. The lightness, the cowardice, and recklessness of Gaul were his, the roughness and cruelty of Africa, the abominations of Syria (whence he was on his mother's side).] Veering from slaughter to sports, he pursued his murderous course no less in the latter. Of course one would pay no attention to an elephant, rhinoceros, tiger, and hippotigris being killed in the theatre, but he took equal pleasure in having gladiators shed the greatest amount of one another's blood. One of them, Bato, he forced to fight three successive men on the same day, and then, when Bato met death at the hands of the last, he honored him with a conspicuous burial.

[Sidenote:—7—] He had Alexander on the brain to such an extent that he used certain weapons and cups which purported to have belonged to the great conqueror, and furthermore he set up many representations of him both among the legions and in Rome itself. He organized a phalanx, sixteen thousand men, of Macedonians alone, named it "Alexander's phalanx," and equipped it with the arms which warriors had used in his day. These were: a helmet of raw oxhide, a three-ply linen breastplate, a bronze shield, long pike, short spear, high boots, sword. Not even this, however, satisfied him, but he called his hero "The Eastern Augustus." Once he wrote to the senate that Alexander had come on earth again in, the body of the Augustus, [Footnote: Antoninus meant himself.] so that when he had finished his own brief existence he might enjoy a larger life in the emperor's person. The so-called Aristotelian philosophers he hated bitterly, wishing even to burn their books, and he abolished the common messes they had in Alexandria and all the other privileges they enjoyed: his grievance, as stated, was the tradition that Aristotle had been an accomplice in the death of Alexander.

This was the way he behaved in those matters. And, by Jupiter, he took around with him numbers of elephants, that in this respect, too, he might seem to be imitating Alexander, or rather, perhaps, Dionysus.

[Sidenote:—8—] On Alexander's account he was fond of all the Macedonians. Once after praising a Macedonian tribune because the latter had shown agility in jumping upon his horse, he enquired of him first: "From what country are you?" Then, learning that he was a Macedonian, he pursued: "What is your name?" Having thereupon heard that it was Antigonus, he further questioned: "How was your father called?" When the father's name was found to be Philip, he declared: "I have all my desire." He straightway bestowed upon him the whole series of exalted military honors and before a great while appointed him one of the senators with the rank of an ex-prætor.

There was another man who had no connection with Macedonia, but had committed many dreadful crimes, and for this reason was tried before him in an appealed case. His name proved to be Alexander, and when the orator accusing him said repeatedly "the bloodthirsty Alexander, the god-detested Alexander," the emperor became angry, as if he were personally slandered, and spoke out: "If Alexander doesn't suit you, you may regard yourself as dismissed."

[Sidenote:—9—] Now this great Alexandrophile, Antoninus, [kept many men about him, alleging reasons after reasons, all fictitious, and wars upon wars. He had also this most frightful characteristic, that he was fond of spending money not only upon the soldiers but for all other projects with one sole end in view,—to] strip, despoil and grind down all mankind, and the senators by no means least. [In the first place, there were gold crowns that he kept demanding, on the constant pretext that he had conquered some enemy or other (I am not speaking about the actual manufacture of the crowns,—for what does that amount to?—but the great sums of money constantly being given under that name by the cities, for the "crowning" (as it is called) of their emperors). Then there was the provisions which we were all the time levying in great abundance from all quarters, sometimes seizing them without compensation and sometimes spending a little something on them: all this supply he presented or else peddled to the soldiers. And the gifts, which he demanded from wealthy individuals and from states. And the taxes, both the new ones which he published and the ten per cent. tax that he instituted in place of the twenty per cent. to apply to the emancipation of slaves, to bequests left to any one, and to all gifts; for he abolished in such cases the right of succession and exemption from taxes which had been accorded to those closely related to persons deceased. This accounts for his giving the title of Romans to all the men in his empire. Nominally it was to honor them, but his real purpose was to get an increased income by such means, since foreigners did not have to pay most of those taxes. But aside from all these] we were also compelled to build at our own expense all sorts of dwellings for him whenever he took a trip from Rome, and costly lodgings in the middle of even the very shortest journeys. Yet not only did he never live in them but he had no idea of so much as looking at a single one. Moreover, without receiving any appropriation from him we constructed hunting-theatres and race-courses at every point where he wintered or expected to winter. They were all torn down without delay and apparently the sole purpose of their being called into existence was to impoverish us.

[Sidenote:—10—] The emperor himself kept spending the money upon the soldiers (as we said) and upon beasts and horses. He was forever killing great collections of wild beasts, of horses, and also of domestic animals, forcing us to contribute the majority of them, though now and then he bought a few. One day he slew a hundred boars at once with his own hands. He raced also in chariots, and then he would wear the Blue costume. In all undertakings he was exceedingly hot-headed and exceedingly fickle, and besides this he possessed the rascality of his mother and of the Syrians, to which race she belonged. He would put up some kind of freedman or other wealthy person as director of games merely that in this occupation, too, the man might spend money. From below he would make gestures of subservience to the audience with his whip and would beg for gold pieces like one of the lowliest citizens. He said that he used the same methods of chariot-driving as the Sun god, and he took pride in the fact. Accordingly, during the whole extent of his reign the whole earth, so far as it yielded obedience to him, was plundered. Hence the Romans once at a horse-race uttered this among other cries: "We are destroying the living in order to bury the dead." The emperor would often say: "No man need have money but me, and I want it to bestow it on the soldiers." Once when Julia chided him for his great outlays upon them and said: "No longer is any resource, either just or unjust, left to us," he replied, exhibiting his sword: "Cheer up, mother: for, as long as we have this, money is not going to fail us."

[Sidenote:—11—] To those who flattered him, however, he distributed possessions and money.

¶Julius Paulus [Footnote: Undoubtedly a mistake for the Julius Paulinus subsequently mentioned.] was a man of consular rank, who was a great chatterer and joker and would not refrain from aiming his shafts of wit at the very emperors: therefore Severus had him taken into custody, though without constraints. When he still continued, even under guard, to make the sovereigns the objects of his jests, Severus sent for him and swore that he would cut off his head. But the man replied: "Yes, you can cut it off, but as long as I have it, neither you nor I can restrain it," and so Severus laughed and released him.

He granted to Julius Paulinus twenty-five myriads because the man, who was a jester, had been led, though involuntarily, to make a joke upon him. Paulinus had said that he actually resembled a man getting angry, for somehow he was always assuming a fierce expression. [Footnote: None of the editors, any more than the casual reader, has been able to find anything of a sidesplitting nature in this joke. The trouble is, of course, that the utterance sounds like a plain statement of fact. Caracalla's natural disposition was harsh and irritable. Some have changed the word "man" to "Pan (in anger)", but without gaining very much. I offer for what it is worth the suggestion that a well-known truth, especially in the case of personal characteristics, may sound very amusing when pronounced in a quizzical or semi-ironical fashion by a person possessing sufficient vis comica. Thus we may conceive Paulinus, a professional jester, on meeting Antoninus to have blurted out in a tone of mock surprise: "Why, anybody would really think you are angry. You look so cross all the time!" There would then be a point in the jest, but the point would lie not in the words but in the voice and features of the speaker. Apart from this explanation of the possible humor of the remark an excerpt of Peter Patricius (Exc. Vat. 143) gives us to understand that it would be taken as a compliment by Antoninus from the mouth of a person to whom he was accustomed to accord some liberties, since Antoninus made a point of maintaining at all times this character of harshness and abruptness.]—Antoninus made no account of anything excellent: he never learned anything of the kind, as he himself admitted. So it was that he showed a contempt for us, who possessed something approaching education. Severus, to be sure, had trained him in all pursuits, bar none, that tended to inculcate virtue, whether physical or mental, so that even after he became emperor he went to teachers and studied philosophy most of the day. He also took oil rubbings without water and rode horseback to a distance of seven hundred and fifty stades. Moreover, he practiced swimming even in rough water. In consequence of this, Antoninus was, as you might say, strong, but he paid no heed to culture, since he had never even heard the name of it. Still, his language was not bad, nor did he lack judgment, but he showed in almost everything a keen appreciation and talked very readily. For through his authority and recklessness and his habit of saying right out without reflection anything at all that occurred to him, and not being ashamed to air his thoughts, he often stumbled upon some felicitous expression. [But the same Antoninus made many mistakes through his headstrong opinions. It was not enough for him to know everything: he wanted to be the only one who knew anything. It was not enough for him to have all power: he would be the only one with any power. Hence it was that he employed no counselor and was jealous of such men as knew something worth while. He never loved a single person and he hated all those who excelled in anything; and most did he hate those whom he affected most to love. Many of these he destroyed in some way or other. Of course he had many men murdered openly, but others he would send to provinces not suited to them, fatal to their physical condition, having an unwholesome climate; thus, while pretending to honor them excessively, he quietly got rid of them, exposing such as he did not like to excessive heat or cold. Hence, though he spared some in so far as not to put them to death, yet he subjected them to such hardships that the stain [Footnote: This is very likely an incorrect translation of an incorrect reading. The various editors of Dio have a few substitutes to propose, but as all the interpretations seem to me extremely lumbering I have turned the MS. [Greek] chêlidoysthai (taken as a passive) in a way that may be not quite beyond the bounds of possibility. The noun [Greek] chêlhist like the English "stain," often passes from its original sense of "blemish" to that of the consequent "disgrace."] of murder still rested on him.

The above describes him in general terms.

[Sidenote: A.D. 213(?)] [Sidenote:—12—] Now we shall state what sort of person he showed himself in war. [Abgarus, king of the Osrhoeni, when he had once got control of the kindred tribes, inflicted the most outrageous treatment upon his superiors. Nominally he was compelling them to change to Roman customs, but in fact he was making the most of his authority over them in an unjustifiable way.] He tricked the king of the Osrhoeni, Abgarus, inducing him to visit him as a friend, and then arrested and imprisoned him. This left Osrhoene without a ruler and he subdued it.

The king of the Armenians had a dispute with his own children and Antoninus summoned him in a friendly letter with the avowed purpose of making peace between them: he treated these princes in the same fashion as he had Abgarus. The Armenians, however, instead of yielding to him had recourse to arms and not one of them thereafter would trust him in the slightest particular. Thus he was brought by experience to understand how great the penalty is for an emperor's practicing deceit toward friends. [The same ruler assumed the utmost credit for the fact that at the death of Vologæsus, king of the Parthians, his children proceeded to fight about the sovereignty; what was purely accidental he pretended had come about through his own connivance. He ever took vehement delight in the actions and dissensions of the brothers and generally in the mutual slaughter of foreign potentates.] He did not hesitate, either, to write to the senate regarding the rulers of the Parthians (who were brothers and at variance) that the brothers' quarrel would work great harm to the Parthian state. Just as if barbarian governments could be destroyed by such procedure and yet the Roman state had been preserved! Just as if it had not been, on the contrary, almost utterly overthrown! It was not merely that the great sums of blood money given under such conditions to the soldiers for his brother's murder served to demoralize mankind: in addition, vast numbers of citizens had information laid against them,—not only those who had sent the brother letters or had brought him presents [Footnote: Reading [Greek: dôrophorhêsantest] (Reimar) for the MS. [Greek: doruphoraesantes].] when he was still Cæsar or again after he had become emperor, but all the rest who had never had any dealings with him. If anybody even so much as wrote the name of Geta, or spoke it, that was the end of him then and there. Hence the poets no longer used it even in comedies. [Footnote: Geta was a common name for slaves in Latin comedy. It came into Rome through Greek channels and was originally merely the national adjective applied to a tribe of northern barbarians.] The property, too, of all those in whose wills the name was found written was confiscated.

[Many of his acts were committed with a view to getting money. And he exhibited his hatred for his dead brother by abolishing the honor paid to his birthday, by getting angry at the stones which had supported his images, and by melting up the coinage that displayed his features. Not even this sufficed him, but more than ever from this time he began his practice of unholy rites and often forced others to share his pollution by making a kind of annual offering to his brother's Manes.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 213 (a.u. 966)] [Sidenote:—13—] Though holding such views and behaving in such a way with regard to the latter's murder he took delight in the dissension of the barbarian brothers, on the ground that the Parthians would suffer some great injury as a result of it.

[The Celtic nations, however, afforded him neither pleasure nor any pretence of cleverness or courage but proved him to be nothing more nor less than a cheat, a simpleton, and an arrant coward. Antoninus made a campaign among the Alamanni and wherever he saw a spot suitable for habitation he would order: "There let a fort be erected: there let a city be built." To those spots he applied names relating to himself, yet the local designations did not get changed; for some of the people were unaware of the new appellations and others thought he was joking. Consequently he came to entertain a contempt for them and would not keep his hands off this tribe even; but, whereas he had been saying that he had come as an ally, he accorded them treatment to be expected of a most implacable foe. He called a meeting of their men of military age under promise that they were to receive pay, and then at a given signal,—his raising aloft his own shield,—he had them surrounded and cut down; he also sent cavalry around and arrested all others not present.

¶Antoninus commended in the senate by means of a letter Pandion, a fellow who had previously been an understudy of charioteers but in the war against the Alamanni drove his chariot for him and in this capacity was his comrade and fellow soldier. And he asserted that he had been saved by this man from a portentous danger and was not ashamed to evince greater gratitude to him than to the soldiers, whom in their turn he regarded as our superiors.[Footnote: There is a gap of a word or two here (Dindorf text), filled by reading [Greek: hêlen hechôn] (with Boissevain).]

¶Some of the most distinguished men whom Antoninus slew he ordered to be cast out unburied.

¶He made a search for the tomb of Sulla and repaired it, and reared a cenotaph to Mesomedes, who had written a compilation of citharoedic modes. He honored the latter because he was himself learning to sing to the zither and the former because he was emulating his cruelty.]

Still, in cases of necessity and urgent campaigns, he was simple and frugal, toiling with painstaking care in menial offices as much as the rest. He trudged beside the soldiers and ran beside them, not taking a bath nor changing his clothing, but helping them in every labor and choosing absolutely the same food as they had. Often he would send to distinguished champions on the enemy's side and challenge them to single combat. The details of generalship in which he certainly ought to have been most versed he managed least well, as if he thought that victory lay in the performance of those services mentioned and not in this science of commanding.

[Sidenote:—14—] He conducted war also against a certain Celtic tribe of Cenni. These warriors are said to have assailed the Romans with the utmost fierceness, using their mouths to pull from their flesh the missiles with which the Osrhoeni wounded them, that they might give their hands no respite in slaughtering the foe. Nevertheless even they, after selling the name of defeat at a high figure, made an agreement with him to go into Germany on condition of being spared. Their women [and those of the Alamanni] all who were captured [would not, in truth, await a servile doom, but] when Antoninus asked them whether they desired to be sold or slain, chose the latter alternative. Afterward, as they were offered for sale, they all killed themselves and some of their children as well. [Many also of the people dwelling close to the ocean itself, near the mouth of the Albis, sent envoys to him and asked his friendship, when their real concern was to get money. For after he had done as they desired, they would frequently attack him, threatening to begin a war; and with all such he came to terms. Even though his offer was contrary to their principles, yet when they saw the gold pieces they were captivated. To them he gave true gold pieces, but the silver and gold money with which he provided the Romans was alloyed.] He manufactured the one of lead with a silver plating and the other of bronze with a gold plating.

[Sidenote:—15—] [The same ruler published some of his devices directly, pretending that they were excellent and worthy of commendation, however base their actual character. Other intentions he rather unwillingly made known through the very precautions which he took to conceal them, as, for example, in the case of the money. He plundered the whole land and the whole sea and left nothing whatever unharmed. The chants of the enemy made Antoninus frenzied and beside himself, hearing which some of the Alamanni asserted that they had used charms to put him out of his mind.] He was sick in body, partly with ordinary and partly with private diseases, and was sick also in mind, suffering from distressing visions; and often he thought he was being pursued by his father and his brother, armed with swords. Therefore he called up spirits to find some remedy against them, among others the spirit of his father and of Commodus. But not one would speak a word to him except Commodus. [Geta, so they say, attended Severus, though unsummoned. Yet not even he offered any suggestion to relieve the emperor, but on the contrary terrified him the more.] This is what he said:

"Draw nearer judgment, which the gods demand of thee [Footnote: Emended (by Fabricius and Reiske) from a corruption in the MS.] for Severus,"

then something else, and finally—

"having in secret places a disease hard to heal."

[For letting these facts become public many suffered unseemly outrage. But to Antoninus not one of the gods gave any response pertaining to the healing of either his body or his mind, although he showered attention upon all the most distinguished shrines. This showed in the clearest light that they regarded not his offerings, nor his sacrifices, but only his purposes and his deeds. He got no aid from Apollo Grannus [Footnote: Grannus was really a Celtic god, merely identified with Apollo. He was honored most in Germany and Dacia (also known in Rhætia, Noricum), and, inasmuch as many inscriptions bearing his name have been found near the Danube, it may probably be conjectured that he had a temple of some importance in that vicinity. For further details see Pauly, II, p. 46; Roscher, I, col. 1738.] nor Asclepius nor Serapis, in spite of his many supplications and his unwearying persistence. Even when abroad he sent to them prayers and sacrifices and votive offerings and many runners traveled to them daily, carrying things of the sort. He also went himself, hoping to prevail by appearing in person, and he performed all the usual practices of devotees, but he obtained nothing that would contribute to health.

[Sidenote:—16—] While declaring that he was the most scrupulous of all mankind, he ran to an excess of blood-guiltiness,] killing four of the vestal virgins, one of whom—so far as he was able—he had forcibly outraged. For latterly all his sexual power had disappeared, as a result of which it was reported that he satisfied his vileness in a different way; and associated with him were others of similar inclinations, who not only admitted that they were given to such practices but maintained that they did so for the sake of their ruler's welfare.

A young knight carried a coin with his image into a brothel and people informed against him.[Footnote: Conjecture, on the basis of Reiske and Bekker.] For this he was at the time imprisoned to await execution, but later was released, as the emperor died before he did.] This maiden of whom I speak was named Clodia Læta. She, crying out loudly, "Antoninus himself knows that I am a virgin, [he himself knows that I am pure,]" was buried alive. [Three others shared her sentence. Two of them, Aurelia Severa and Pomponia Rufina, met a similar death, but Cannutia Crescentina threw herself from the top of the house.

And in the case of adulterers he did the same. For though he showed himself the most adulterous of men (so far, at least, as he was physically able) he both detested others who bore the same charge and killed them contrary to established laws.—Though displeased at all good men, he affected to honor some few of them after their death.—

¶Antoninus censured and rebuked them all because they asked nothing of him. And he said, in the presence of all: "It is evident from the fact that you ask nothing of me that you lack confidence in me. And if you lack confidence, you are suspicious of me; and if you are suspicious of me, you fear me; and if you fear me, you hate me." He made this an excuse for severe measures.

¶Antoninus being about to cause Cornificia to take leave of earth bade her (as a token of honor) choose what death she wished to die. She, after many lamentations, inspired by the memory of her father, Marcus, her grandfather, Antoninus, and her brother, Commodus, ended with this speech: "Pining, unhappy soul of mine, shut in a vile body, make forth, be free, show them that you are Marcus's daughter, whether they will or no!" Then she laid aside all the adornment in which she was arrayed, and having composed her limbs in seemly fashion severed her veins and died.

[Sidenote: A.D. 214 (a.u. 967)] Next, Antoninus arrived in Thrace, paying no further heed to Dacia. Having crossed the Hellespont, not without danger, he did honor to Achilles with sacrifices and races, in armor, about the tomb, in which he as well as the soldiers participated. For this he gave them money, assuring them that they had won a great success and had in very truth captured that famous Ilium of old, and he set up a bronze statue of Achilles himself.] ¶Antoninus by arriving at Pergamum, while there was some dispute about it, [Footnote: The sense of these words is not clear. Boissevain conjectures that there may have been some who doubted whether an emperor so diseased would ever live to reach Mysia.] seemed to bring to fulfillment the following verse, according to some oracle:

"O'er the Telephian land shall prowl the Ausonian beast."

He took a lasting delight and pride in the fact that he was called "beast," and his victims fell in heaps. The man who had composed the verse used to laugh and say that he was in very truth himself the verse-maker (thereby indicating that no one may die contrary to the will of fate, but that the common saying is true, which declares that liars and deceivers are never believed, even if they tell the truth).

[Sidenote:—17—] He held court but little or not at all. Most of his leisure he devoted to meddlesomeness as much as anything. People from all quarters brought him word of all the most insignificant occurrences. For this reason he gave orders that the soldiers who kept their eyes and ears wide open for these details should be liable to punishment by no one save himself. This enactment, too, produced no good result, but we had a new set of tyrants in them. But the thing that was especially unseemly and most unworthy, both of the senate and of the Roman people,—we had a eunuch to domineer over us. He was a native of Spain, by name Sempronius Rufus, and his occupation that of a sorcerer and juggler (for which he had been confined on an island by Severus). This fellow was destined to pay the penalty for his conduct, as were also the rest who laid information against others. As for Antoninus, he would send word that he should hold court or transact any other public business directly after dawn; but he kept putting us off till noon and often till evening, and would not even admit us to the ante-chamber, so that we had to stand about outside somewhere. Usually at a late hour he decided that he would not even exchange greetings with us that day. Meanwhile he was largely engaged in gratifying his inquisitiveness, as I said, or was driving chariots, killing beasts, fighting as a gladiator, drinking, enjoying the consequent big head, mixing great bowls (beside their other food) for the soldiers that kept guard over him within, and sending round cups of wine (this last before our very face and eyes). At the conclusion of all this, once in a while he would hold court.

[Sidenote: A.D. 214-215] [Sidenote:—18—] That was his behavior while in winter-quarters at Nicomedea. He also trained the Macedonian phalanx. He constructed two very large engines for the Armenian and for the Parthian war, so that he could take them to pieces and carry them over on boats into Syria. For the rest, he was staining himself with more blood and transgressing laws and using up money. Neither in these matters nor in any others did he heed his mother, who gave him much excellent advice. This in spite of the fact that he entrusted to her the management of the books and letters both, save the very important ones, and that he inscribed her name with many praises in his letters to the senate, mentioning it in the same connection as his own and that of his armies, i.e., with a statement that she was safe. Need it be mentioned that she greeted publicly all the foremost men, just as her son did? But she continued more and more her study of philosophy with these persons. He kept declaring that he needed nothing beyond necessities, and gave himself airs over the fact that he could get along with the cheapest kind of living. Yet there was nothing on earth or in the sea or in the air that we did not keep furnishing him privately and publicly. [Of these articles he used extremely few for the benefit of the friends with him (for he no longer cared to dine with us), but the most of them he consumed with his freedmen. Such was his delight in magicians and jugglers that he commended and honored Apollonius [Footnote: The famous Apollonius of Tyana.] of Cappadocia, who had flourished in Domitian's reign and was a thoroughgoing juggler and magician; and he erected a heroum to his memory.

[Sidenote: A.D. 215 (a.u. 968)] [Sidenote:—19—] The pretext for his campaign against the Parthians was that Vologæsus had not acceded to his request for the extradition of Tiridates and a certain Antiochus with him. Antiochus was a Cilician and pretended at first to be a philosopher of the cynic school. In this way he was of very great assistance to the soldiers in warfare. He strengthened them against the despair caused by the excessive cold, for he threw himself into the snow and rolled in it; and as a result he obtained money and honors from Severus himself and from Antoninus. Elated at this, he attached himself to Tiridates and in his company deserted to the Parthian prince.

[Sidenote:—20—] [Antoninus surely maligned himself in asserting that he had overcome by slyness the audacity, rapacity and faithlessness of the Celtæ, against which arms were of no avail. The same man commended Fabricius Luscinus because he had refused to let Pyrrhus be treacherously murdered by his friend.—He took pride in having put enmity between the Vandili and Marcomani, who were friends, and in having executed Gaiobomarus, the accused king of the Quadi. And since one of the latter's associates, under accusation at the same time with him, hanged himself before execution, Antoninus delivered his corpse to the barbarians to be wounded, that the man might be regarded as having been killed in pursuance of a sentence instead of dying voluntarily (which was deemed a creditable act among them).

He killed Cæcilius Æmilianus, governor of Bætica, on suspicion that he had asked an oracular reply from Hercules at Gades.]

[Sidenote:—19—] Before leaving Nicomedea the emperor held a gladiatorial contest there in honor of his birthday, for not even on that day did he refrain from slaughter. Here it is said that a combatant, being defeated, begged for his life, whereupon Antoninus said: "Go and ask your adversary. I am not empowered to spare you."

[Sidenote: A.D. 216 (a.u. 969)] And so the wretch, who would probably have been allowed by his antagonist to go, if the above words had not been spoken, lost his life. The victor did not dare release him for fear of appearing more humane than the emperor.

[Sidenote:—20—] For all that, while so engaged and steeped in the luxury of Antioch even to the point of keeping his chin wholly bare, he gave utterance to laments, as if he were in the midst of great toils and dangers. And he reproved the senate, saying for one thing that they were slothful, did not understand readily, and did not give their votes separately. Finally he wrote: "I know that my behavior doesn't please you. But the reason for my having arms and soldiers alike is to enable me to disregard anything that is said about me."

[Sidenote:—21—] When the Parthian monarch in fear surrendered both Tiridates and Antiochus, he disbanded the expedition at once. But he despatched Theocritus with an army into Armenian territory and suffered defeat amounting to a severe reverse at the hands of the inhabitants. Theocritus was of servile origin and had been brought up in the orchestra; [he was the man who had taught Antoninus dancing and had been a favorite of Saoterus, and through the influence thus acquired he had been introduced to the theatre at Rome. But, as he was disliked there, he was driven out of Rome and went to Lugdunum, where he delighted the people, who were rather provincial. And, from a slave and dancer, he came to be an army leader and prefect.] He advanced to such power in the household of Antoninus that both the prefects were as nothing compared to him. Likewise Epagathus, himself also a Cæsarian, had equal influence with him and committed equal transgressions. Thus Theocritus, who kept traveling back and forth in the interest of securing provisions and selling them at retail, proved the death of many persons because of his authority and for other reasons. One victim was Titianus Flavius. The latter, while procurator in Alexandria, offended him in some way, whereupon Theocritus, leaping from his seat, drew his sword. At that Titianus remarked: "This, too, you have done like a dancer." Hence the other in a rage ordered him to be killed.

[Sidenote:—22—] Now Antoninus, in spite of his declaration that he cherished an overwhelming love for Alexander, all but destroyed utterly the whole population of Alexander's city. Hearing that he was spoken against and ridiculed by them for various reasons, and not least of all for murdering his brother, he set out for Alexandria, concealing his wrath and pretending to long to see them. But when he reached the suburbs whither the leading citizens had come with certain mystic and sacred symbols, he greeted them as if he intended to entertain them at a banquet and then put them to death. After this he arrayed his whole force in armor and marched into the city; he had sent previous notice to all the people there to remain at home and had occupied all the streets and in addition all the roofs in advance. And, to pass over the details of the calamities that then befell the wretched city, he slaughtered so many individuals that he dared not even speak about the number of them, but wrote the senate that it was of no interest how many of them or who had died, for they all deserved to suffer this fate. Of the property, part was plundered and part destroyed.

[Sidenote:—23—] With the people perished also many foreigners, and not a few who had accompanied Antoninus were destroyed for want of identification. As the city was large and persons were being murdered all over it by night and by day, it was impossible to distinguish anybody, no matter how much one might wish it. They simply expired as chance directed and their bodies were straightway cast into deep trenches to keep the rest from being aware of the extent of the disaster.—That was the fate of the natives. The foreigners were all driven out except the merchants, and even they had all their wares plundered. Also some shrines were despoiled. In the midst of most of these atrocities Antoninus was present and looked on and personally took a hand, but sometimes he issued orders to others from the temple of Serapis. He lived in this god's precinct even during the nights and days that witnessed the shedding of Egyptian blood. [And he sent word to the senate that he was observing purity during the days when he was in reality sacrificing there domestic beasts and human beings at the same time to the god.] Yet why should I have spoken of this, when he actually dared to devote to the god the sword with which he had killed his brother?

Next he abolished the spectacles and the public messes of the Alexandrians and ordered Alexandria to be broken up [Footnote: The reading is [Greek: dioikisthaenai].] into villages, with a wall fully garrisoned bisecting the city, that the inhabitants might no longer visit one another with security. Such was the treatment accorded unhappy Alexandria by the Ausonian Beast, as the tag of the oracle about him called him; and he said he liked the title and was glad to be distinguished by the honorific appellation of "Beast." Never mind how many persons he murdered on the pretext that they had fulfilled the oracle.

[Sidenote:—24—] [The same man gave prizes to the soldiers for their campaign, allowing those stationed in the pretorian guard to get some six thousand two hundred and fifty [Footnote: The common reading is "twelve hundred and fifty," but since it seems incredible that the Pretorians should have obtained less, instead of more, than the ordinary soldiers, Lange with much reason proposed the change carried out above,—a change which requires the insertion (or restitution) of but one Greek numeral-letter that might easily have been overlooked by some copyist.] and the rest five thousand [lacuna]

[That model of temperance (as he was wont to put it), the rebuker of licentiousness in others, at the consummation of a most vile and at the same time most dangerous outrage, appeared, in truth, to be indignant; but by not giving that indignation sufficient free play and further by allowing the youths to do what no one had ever yet dared to propose, he greatly corrupted the latter, who had imitated the habits of women of the demi-monde and of professional male buffoons.]

[On the occasion of the Culenian [Footnote: Nobody knows what the Culenian games were; Valois guesses that they may have been an Alexandrian festival. The text of this whole chapter is in a very ragged condition, and should not be held too strictly accountable in the matter of sense or cohesion.] spectacle severe censure was passed, not only upon those who there carried on their accustomed pursuits, but also upon the spectators.]

DIO'S ROMAN HISTORY

78

Antoninus's treacherous campaign against Artabanus, the Parthian (chapters 1-3).

Antoninus's death (chapters 4-6). Foreshadowings of his death, and the abuse heaped upon him dead (chapters 7-10).

About Macrinus Augustus, and his excellencies and faults (chapters 11-15).

His letters and commands to the senate, and other official acts (chapters 16-22).

Death of Julia Augusta (chapters 23, 24).

Inauspicious signs: peace arranged with Artabanus after submitting to a defeat (chapters 25-27).

Uprising of the soldiers: Pseudantoninus is proclaimed as emperor by the soldiers (chapters 28-31).

How Macrinus, conquered in battle, took to flight and was cut down after the capture of his son (chapters 32-41).