In the midst of this wrathful mood Marcius arrived with the order given to him by Manlius and, without knowing what had happened, he delivered his appointment to the new Cæsar.
"Who is this?" asked Diocletian, turning to Mesembrius.
"The Cæsar's barber."
Diocletian turned smiling to the soldiers.
"Friends! Carinus provided for our beards and sent us a barber with the rank of an Imperator; pray sit down before him and have yourselves shaved. But do you take care not to cut my soldiers' faces, my little friend, for if they should try their big razors on you, you would fare ill."
The soldiers, amid loud shouts of laughter, dragged Marcius off with them, and made him shave their bristling beards.
Scarcely an hour later Ævius arrived with the command to dismiss half the army at once.
This enraged the Cæsar and the whole body of troops. To assail their interests so boldly was presumptuous even from the Imperator.
"To the funeral pyre with the messenger and his message!" cried Diocletian, and the poet had already been bound to the huge pile of logs when he sighed bitterly:
"O ye gods, must I, while still living, witness my own apotheosis?"