Geta on seeing them had run to his mother, and as he hung upon her neck
and clung to her bosom and breasts he was cut down, bewailing his fate
and crying out: "Mother that bore me, mother that bore me, help! I am
slain!!"

[Sidenote: A.D. 212 (_a.u._ 965)] Tricked in this way, she beheld her son
perishing by most unholy violence in her very lap, and, as it were,
received his death into her womb whence she had borne him. She was all
covered with blood, so that she made no account of the wound she had
received in her hand. She might neither mourn nor weep for her son,
although, untimely he had met so miserable an end (he was only
twenty-two years and nine months old): on the contrary, she was
compelled to rejoice and laugh as though enjoying some great piece of
luck. All her words, gestures, and changes of color were watched with
the utmost narrowness. She alone, Augusta, wife of the emperor, mother
of emperors, was not permitted to shed tears even in private over so
great a calamity.

[Sidenote:--3--] Antoninus, although it was evening, took possession of
the legions after bawling all the way along the road that he had been
the object of a plot and was in danger. On entering the fortifications,
he exclaimed: "Rejoice, fellow-soldiers, for now I have a chance to
benefit you!" Before they heard the whole story he had stopped their
mouths with so many and so great promises that they could neither think
nor speak anything decent. "I am one of you," he said, "it is on your
account alone that I care to live, that so I may afford you much
happiness. All the treasuries are yours." Indeed, he said this also: "I
pray if possible to live with you, but if not, at any rate to die with
you. I do not fear death in any form, and it is my desire to end my days
in warfare. There should a man die, or nowhere!"