[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.