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.