years of age [lacking three or five days],--and eminent in experience of
affairs, displaying some degree of excellence and commanding so many
legions, was overthrown by a mere child of whose very name he had
previously been ignorant,--even as the oracle had foretold to him;
[[lacuna]] for upon his applying [to Zeus Belus] it had answered him:

"Old man, verily warriors young harass and exhaust thee:
Utterly spent is thy strength, and a grievious eld comes upon thee!"
[Footnote: From Homer's Iliad, VIII, verses 102-103.]

And fleeing [lacuna] or [lacuna], having played part of runaway slave
through the provinces which he had ruled, arrested like some robber by
common officers, beholding himself with villains most dishonored
[lacuna] guarded before whom often many senators had been brought; and
_his_ death was ordered who had the authority to punish or to release
any Roman whomsoever, and he was arrested and beheaded by centurions,
when he had authority to put to death both them and others, inferior and
superior. And his son likewise perished.

[Sidenote:--41--] This proves that no one, even of those whose
foundations seem unshakable, is sure of his position, but the exceeding
prosperous, equally with the rest, are poised in the balance.

And this man would have been lauded beyond all mankind, if he had not
himself desired to become emperor, but had chosen some person enrolled
in the senate to stand at the head of the Roman empire and had
appointed him emperor; and only in this way could he have avoided blame
for the plot against Caracalla, for by such action he would have
demonstrated that he resorted to it to secure his own safety and not on
account of a desire for supremacy. Whereas, instead, he got himself into