dreams, but
in his waking hours he had, while a youth, ignorantly seated himself upon
the imperial chair. This accident, taken with the rest, indicated
rulership to him in advance.

[Sidenote:--4--] Upon attaining that condition he erected a heroum to
Pertinax and commanded that his name should be repeated in the course of
all prayers and of all oaths. A gold image of him was ordered brought into
the hippodrome on a car drawn by elephants and three gilded thrones for
him conveyed into the remaining theatres. His funeral, in spite of the
time elapsed since his death, took place as follows:

In the Forum Romanum a wooden platform was constructed hard by the stone
one, upon which was set a building without walls but encompassed by
columns, with elaborate ivory and gold decoration. In it a couch of
similar material was placed, surrounded by heads of land and sea
creatures, and adorned with purple coverlets interwoven with gold. Upon it
had been laid a kind of wax image of Pertinax, arrayed in triumphal
attire. A well-formed boy was scaring the flies away from it with peacock
feathers, as though it were really a person sleeping. While it was lying
there in state, Severus, we senators, and our wives approached, clad in
mourning garb. [Footnote: Reading [Greek: penthikos] (Sylburgius,
Boissevain et al)..] The ladies sat in the porticos, and we under the open
sky. After this there came forward, first, statues of all the famous
ancient Romans, then choruses of boys and men, intoning a kind of mournful
hymn to Pertinax. Next were all the subject nations, represented by bronze
images, attired in native garb. And the guilds in the City itself,--those
of the lictors and the scribes and the heralds, and all others of the
sort,--followed on. Then came images of other men who were famous for some
deed or invention or brilliant trait. Behind them were the cavalry and
infantry in armor, the race-horses, and all the funeral offerings that the
emperor and we and our wives, together with distinguished knights and
peoples and the collegia of the city, had sent. They were accompanied by
an altar, entirely gilded, the beauty of which was enhanced by ivory and
Indic jewels. [Sidenote:--5--] When these had gone by, Severus mounted the
Platform of the Beaks and read a eulogy of Pertinax. We shouted our
approval many times in the midst of his discourse, partly praising and
partly bewailing Pertinax, but our cries were loudest when he had ceased.