Dios Rome, Vol. 6 | Page 9

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