those who heard could barely understand,
he asked if he might take part in the wrestling exercises and contend
for the prize. This the officers would not permit. For a Roman soldier
to be overthrown by a Thracian peasant, as seemed likely to be the
result, would be a disgrace not to be risked. But he might try, if he
would, with the camp followers, some of the stoutest of whom were chosen
to contend with him. Of these he laid no less than sixteen, in
succession, on the ground.

Here was a man worth having in the ranks. Some gifts were given him, and
he was told that he might enlist, if he chose; a privilege he was quick
to accept. The next day the peasant, happy in the thought of being a
soldier, was seen among a crowd of recruits, dancing and exulting in
rustic fashion, while his head towered above them all.

The emperor, who was passing in the march, looked at him with interest
and approval, and as he rode onward the new recruit ran up to his horse,
and followed him on foot during a long and rapid journey without the
least appearance of fatigue.

This remarkable endurance astonished Severus. "Thracian," he said, "are
you prepared to wrestle after your race?"

"Ready and willing," answered the youth, with alacrity.

Some of the strongest soldiers of the army were now selected and pitted
against him, and he overthrew seven of them in rapid succession. The
emperor, delighted with this matchless display of vigor and agility,
presented him with a golden collar in reward, and ordered that he should
be placed in the horse-guards that formed his personal escort.

The new recruit, Maximin by name, was a true barbarian, though born in
the empire. His father was a Goth, his mother of the nation of the
Alani. But he had judgment and shrewdness, and a valor equal to his
strength, and soon advanced in the favor of the emperor, who was a good
judge of merit. Fierce and impetuous by nature, experience of the world
taught him to restrain these qualities, and he advanced in position
until he attained the rank of centurion.

After the death of Severus the Thracian served with equal fidelity under
his son Caracalla, whose favor and esteem he won. During the short
reign of the profligate and effeminate Elagabalus, Maximin withdrew
from the court, but he returned when Alexander Severus, one of the
noblest of Roman emperors, came to the throne. The new monarch was
familiar with his ability and the incidents of his unusual career, and