Totus et argento contextus et auro:

clothed in its gold and silver, dainty as that old divinely constructed
armour of which Homer tells, but without its miraculous
lightsomeness--he looked out baffled, labouring, moribund; a mere
comfortless shadow taking part in some shadowy reproduction of the
labours of Hercules, through those northern, mist-laden confines of the
civilised world. It was as if the familiar soul which had been so
friendly disposed towards him were actually departed to Hades; and when
he read the Conversations afterwards, though his judgment of them
underwent no material change, it was nevertheless with the allowance we
make for the dead. The memory of that suffering image, while it
certainly strengthened his adhesion [60] to what he could accept at all
in the philosophy of Aurelius, added a strange pathos to what must seem
the writer's mistakes. What, after all, had been the meaning of that
incident, observed as so fortunate an omen long since, when the prince,
then a little child much younger than was usual, had stood in ceremony
among the priests of Mars and flung his crown of flowers with the rest
at the sacred image reclining on the Pulvinar? The other crowns lodged
themselves here or there; when, Lo! the crown thrown by Aurelius, the
youngest of them all, alighted upon the very brows of the god, as if
placed there by a careful hand! He was still young, also, when on the
day of his adoption by Antoninus Pius he saw himself in a dream, with
as it were shoulders of ivory, like the images of the gods, and found
them more capable than shoulders of flesh. Yet he was now well-nigh
fifty years of age, setting out with two-thirds of life behind him,
upon a labour which would fill the remainder of it with anxious
cares--a labour for which he had perhaps no capacity, and certainly no
taste.

That ancient suit of armour was almost the only object Aurelius now
possessed from all those much cherished articles of vertu collected by
the Caesars, making the imperial residence like a magnificent museum.
Not men alone were needed for the war, so that it became necessary, to
the great disgust alike of timid persons and of [61] the lovers of
sport, to arm the gladiators, but money also was lacking. Accordingly,
at the sole motion of Aurelius himself, unwilling that the public
burden should be further increased, especially on the part of the poor,
the whole of the imperial ornaments and furniture, a sump