irst set the
fashion of wearing a beard. When he had done this, he next took a bath and
had dinner. So the next day he said to his friends who were always in the
habit of making statements detrimental to Sura: "If Sura had wanted to
kill me, he would have killed me yesterday." [Sidenote:--16--] Now he did
a great thing in running this risk in the case of a man who had been
calumniated, but a still greater thing in believing that he would never be
harmed by him.

So it was that the confidence of his mind was strengthened by his own
knowledge of his dealings with Sura instead of being influenced by the
fancies of others.

Indeed, when he first handed to him [Footnote: Saburanus. (?)] who was to
be prefect of the Pretorians the sword which the latter required to wear
by his side, he bared the blade, holding it up said: "Take this sword, to
the end that if I rule well, you may use it for me, but if ill, against
me."

He also set up images of Sosia and Palma and Celsus, [Footnote: _L.
Publilius Celsus_.]--so greatly did he esteem them above others. Those,
however, who conspired against him (among whom was Crassus) he brought
before the senate and caused to be punished.

[Sidenote: A.D. 114 (a.u. 867)] Again he gathered collections of books.
And he set up in the Forum an enormous column, to serve at once as a
sepulchral monument to himself and as a reminder of his work in the Forum.
The whole region there was hilly and he dug it down for a distance
equaling the height of the column, thus making the Forum level.

[Sidenote:--17--] Next he made a campaign against the Armenians and
Parthians on the pretext that the Armenian king [Footnote:
_Exedares_.] had obtained his diadem not at his hands but from the
Parthian king. [Footnote: _Osrhoes_.] His real reason, however, was a
desire to win fame. [On his campaign against the Parthians, when he had
reached Athens, an embassy from Osrhoes met him asking for peace and
proffering gifts. This king had learned of his advance and was terrified
because Trajan was wont to make good his threats by deeds. Therefore he
humbled his pride and sent a supplication that war be not made against
him: he asked Armenia for Parthomasiris, who was likewise a son of
Pacorus, and requested that the diadem be sent to him. He had put a stop,
he said, to the reign of Exedares, who was beneficial neither to the
Romans nor to the Parthians.

The emperor neither received the gifts, nor sent any answer or