Dios Rome, Vol. 6 | Page 7

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 hech?n] (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