, thinking them to be followers of Albinus, and routed all their
pursuers. At this moment the cavalry under Laetus came up from the side
and decided the rest of the issue for them. Laetus, so long as the
struggle was close, remained inactive, hoping that both parties would be
destroyed and that whatever soldiers were left on both sides would give
him supreme authority. When, however, he saw Severus's party getting the
upper hand, he contributed to the result. So it was that Severus
conquered.

[Sidenote:--7--] Roman power had suffered a severe blow, since the numbers
that fell on each side were beyond reckoning. Many even of the victors
deplored the disaster, for the entire plain was seen to be covered with
the bodies of men and horses. Some of them lay there exhausted by many
wounds, others thoroughly mangled, and still others unwounded but buried
under heaps. Weapons had been tossed about and blood flowed in streams,
even swelling the rivers. Albinus took refuge in a house located near the
Rhone, but when he saw all its environs guarded, he slew himself. I am not
telling what Severus wrote about it, but what actually took place. The
emperor after inspecting his body and feasting his eyes upon it to the
full while he let his tongue indulge in appropriate utterances, ordered
it,--all but the head,--to be cast out, and that he sent to Rome to be
exposed on a cross. As he showed clearly by this action that he was very
far from being an excellent ruler, he alarmed even more than before the
populace and us by the commands which he issued. Now that he had
vanquished all forces under arms he poured out upon the unarmed all the
wrath he had nourished against them during the previous period. He
terrified us most of all by declaring himself the son of Marcus and
brother of Commodus; and to Commodus, whom but recently he was wont to
abuse, he gave heroic honors. [Sidenote:--8--] While reading before the
senate a speech in which he praised the severity and cruelty of Sulla and
Marius and Augustus as rather the safer course, and deprecated the
clemency of Pompey and Caesar because it had proved their ruin, he
introduced a defence of Commodus, and inveighed against the senate for
dishonoring him unjustly though the majority of their own body lived even
worse lives. "For if", said he, "this is abominable, that he with his own
hands should have killed beasts, yet at Ostia yesterday or the day before
one of your number, an old man that