commanders to the provinces and the armies, and employ assassins to
butcher all the former governors and commanders, as men unanimously
engaged in a conspiracy against him; to massacre the exiles in every
quarter, and all the Gaulish population in Rome; the former lest they
should join the insurrection; the latter as privy to the designs of their
countrymen, and ready to support (373) them; to abandon Gaul itself, to
be wasted and plundered by his armies; to poison the whole senate at a
feast; to fire the city, and then let loose the wild beasts upon the
people, in order to impede their stopping the progress of the flames.
But being deterred from the execution of these designs not so much by
remorse of conscience, as by despair of being able to effect them, and
judging an expedition into Gaul necessary, he removed the consuls from
their office, before the time of its expiration was arrived; and in their
room assumed the consulship himself without a colleague, as if the fates
had decreed that Gaul should not be conquered, but by a consul. Upon
assuming the fasces, after an entertainment at the palace, as he walked
out of the room leaning on the arms of some of his friends, he declared,
that as soon as he arrived in the province, he would make his appearance
amongst the troops, unarmed, and do nothing but weep: and that, after he
had brought the mutineers to repentance, he would, the next day, in the
public rejoicings, sing songs of triumph, which he must now, without loss
of time, apply himself to compose.

XLIV. In preparing for this expedition, his first care was to provide
carriages for his musical instruments and machinery to be used upon the
stage; to have the hair of the concubines he carried with him dressed in
the fashion of men; and to supply them with battle-axes, and Amazonian
bucklers. He summoned the city-tribes to enlist; but no qualified
persons appearing, he ordered all masters to send a certain number of
slaves, the best they had, not excepting their stewards and secretaries.