persons had once called attention to this fact, it also came to my mind
that when he was giving us a banquet in Nicomedea at the Saturnalia and
had talked a good deal, as was usual at a symposium, then on our rising
to go he had addressed me and said: "With great acumen and truth, Dio,
has Euripides remarked that

"'Neath divers forms the spirit world is lurking,
Much passing hope the gods are ever working.
Oft disappointment strikes down sure ambition:
The unthought chance God brings to full fruition.
This story leaves things in just that condition.'"

[Footnote: Lines that occur at the end of several of Euripides's
dramas.]

At the time this quotation seemed to have been mere nonsense, but when
not long after he perished the fact that this was the last speech he
uttered to me was thought to infuse into it a certain truly oracular
significance with regard to what was to befall him. Similar importance
was attached to the utterance of Jupiter called Belus, [Footnote: The
same as Baal.] a god revered in Apamea [Footnote: This is the Apamea on
the Orontes, built by Seleucus Nicator.] of Syria. He, years before,
when Severus was still a private citizen, had spoken to him these
verses:

"Touching eyes and head, like Zeus, whose delight is in thunder,
Like unto Ares in waist, and in chest resembling Poseidon."
[Footnote: From Homer's Iliad, II, verses 478-9.]

And later, after his accession as emperor, the god had made this