ng there removed, that he should be the property of the
person whom he followed of his own accord, after drinking.

VIII. For his achievements, both at this time in Africa, and formerly in
Germany, he received the triumphal ornaments, and three sacerdotal
appointments, one among The Fifteen, another in the college of Titius,
and a third amongst the Augustals; and from that time to the middle of
Nero's reign, he lived for the most part in retirement. He never went
abroad (405) so much as to take the air, without a carriage attending
him, in which there was a million of sesterces in gold, ready at hand;
until at last, at the time he was living in the town of Fundi, the
province of Hispania Tarraconensis was offered him. After his arrival in
the province, whilst he was sacrificing in a temple, a boy who attended
with a censer, became all on a sudden grey-headed. This incident was
regarded by some as a token of an approaching revolution in the
government, and that an old man would succeed a young one: that is, that
he would succeed Nero. And not long after, a thunderbolt falling into a
lake in Cantabria [660], twelve axes were found in it; a manifest sign of
the supreme power.

IX. He governed the province during eight years, his administration
being of an uncertain and capricious character. At first he was active,
vigorous, and indeed excessively severe, in the punishment of offenders.
For, a money-dealer having committed some fraud in the way of his
business, he cut off his hands, and nailed them to his counter. Another,
who had poisoned an orphan, to whom he was guardian, and next heir to the
estate, he crucified. On this delinquent imploring the protection of the
law, and crying out that he was a Roman citizen, he affected to afford
him some alleviation, and to mitigate his punishment, by a mark of
honour, ordered a cross, higher than usual, and painted white, to be
erected for him. But by degrees he gave himself up to a life of
indolence and inactivity, from the fear of giving Nero any occasion of
jealousy, and because, as he used to say, "Nobody was obliged to render
an account of their leisure hours." He was holding a court of justice on
the circuit at New Carthage [661], when he received intelligence of the
insurrection in Gaul [662]; and while the lieutenant of Aquitania was
soliciting his assistance, letters were brought from Vindex, requesting
him "to assert the rights of mankind, and put himself at th