When this had been done and the Caledonians as well as the Maeatians
revolted, he proceeded with preparations to make war upon them in person.
While he was thus engaged his sickness carried him off on the fourth of
February. [Sidenote: A.D. 211 (a.u. 964)] Antoninus, it is said,
contributed something to the result. Before he closed his eyes he is
reputed to have spoken these words to his children (I shall use the exact
phraseology without embellishment): "Be harmonious, enrich the soldiers,
scorn everybody else." After this his body arrayed in military garb was
placed upon a pyre, and as a mark of honor the soldiers and his children
ran about it. Those present who had any military gifts threw them upon it
and the sons applied the fire. Later his bones were put in a jar of purple
stone, conveyed to Rome, and deposited in the tomb of the Antonines. It is
said that Severus sent for the jar a little before his death and after
feeling it over remarked: "Thou shalt hold a man that the world could not
hold."

[Sidenote:--16--] He was slow-moulded but strong, though he eventually
grew very weak from gout: mentally he was very keen and very firm. He
wished for more education than he got and for this reason he was sagacious
rather than a good talker. Toward friends not forgetful, to enemies most
oppressive, he was capable of everything that he desired to accomplish but
careless of everything said about him. Hence he gathered money from every
source (save that he killed no one to get it) [and met all necessary
expenditures quite ungrudgingly. He restored very many of the ancient
buildings and inscribed upon them his own name to signify that he had
repaired them so as to be new structures, and from his private funds. Also
he spent a great deal uselessly upon renovating and repairing other
places], erecting, for instance, to Bacchus and Hercules a temple of huge
size. Yet, though his expenses were enormous, he left behind not merely a
few myriad denarii, easily reckoned, but a great many. Again, he rebuked
such persons as were not chaste, even going to the extent of enacting
certain laws in regard to adultery, with the result that there were any
number of prosecutions for that offence. When consul I once found three
thousand entered on the docket. But inasmuch as very few persons appeared
to conduct their cases, he too ceased to trouble his head about it.
Apropos of this, a quite witty remark is reported of the wife of
Argentocoxus,