f which is its quiet, that enables me to get leisure from city
affairs and to write on this compilation. As a result of the Vesuvian
phenomena it was believed that there would be a change in the political
status of Plautianus. In very truth Plautianus had grown great and more
than great, so that even the populace at the hippodrome exclaimed: "Why do
you tremble? Why are you pale? You possess more than the three." They did
not say this to his face, of course, but differently. And by "three" they
indicated Severus and his sons, Antoninus and Geta. Plautianus's pallor
and his trembling were in fact due to the life that he lived, the hopes
that he hoped, and the fears that he feared. Still, for a time most of
this eluded Severus's individual notice, or else he knew it but pretended
the opposite. When, however, his brother Geta on his deathbed revealed to
him the whole attitude of Plautianus,--for Geta hated the prefect and now
no longer feared him,--the emperor set up a bronze statue of his brother
in the Forum and no longer held his minister in equal honor; indeed, the
latter was stripped of most of his power. Hence [Sidenote: A.D. 203 (a.u.
956)] Plautianus became violently enraged, and whereas he had formerly
hated Antoninus for slighting his daughter, he was now especially
indignant, feeling that his son-in-law was responsible for his present
disgrace, and began to behave more harshly toward him. [Sidenote:--3--]
For these reasons Antoninus became both disgusted with his wife (who was a
most shameless creature), and offended at her father himself, because the
latter kept meddling in all his undertakings and rebuking him for
everything that he did. Conceiving a desire to be rid of the man in some
way or other he accordingly had Euodus, his nurse, persuade a certain
centurion, Saturninus, and two others of similar rank to bring him word
that Plautianus had ordered some ten centurions, to whose number they also
belonged, to kill both Severus and Antoninus; and they read a certain
writing which they pretended to have received bearing upon this very
matter. This was done as a surprise at the observances held in the palace
in honor of the heroes, at a time when the spectacle had ceased and dinner
was about to be served. That fact was largely instrumental in showing the
story to be a fabrication. Plautianus would never have dared to impose
such a bidding upon ten centurions at once, certainly not in Rome,
certainly not in the pal