kill their commander, Flavius Heracleo, and the Pretorians found fault
with me before Ulpianus because I ruled the soldiers in Pannonia with a
strong hand; and they demanded my surrender, through fear that some one
might compel them to submit to a régime similar to that of the Pannonian
troops.

[Sidenote:--5--] Alexander, however, paid no attention to them, but
promoted me in various ways, appointing me to be consul for the second
time, as his colleague, and taking upon himself personally the
responsibility of meeting the expenditures of my office. As the
malcontents evinced displeasure at this, he became afraid that they
might kill me if they saw me in the insignia of my office, and he bade
me spend the period of my consulship in Italy, somewhere outside of
Rome. Later, accordingly, I came both to Rome and to Campania to visit
him. After spending a few days in his company, during which the soldiers
saw me without offering to do me any harm, I started for home, being
released on account of the trouble with my feet. Consequently, I expect
to spend all the remainder of my life in my own country, as the Divine
Presence revealed to me most clearly at the time I was in Bithynia.
Once, in a dream there, I thought I saw myself commanded by it to write
at the close of my work the following verses:

"Hector was led of Zeus far out of the range of the missiles,
Out of the dust and the slaying of men, out of blood and of uproar."

[Footnote: From Homer's Iliad, XI, verses 163-4.]

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