or the future should be
free from all the ordinary inconveniences of mortality, now began to
depart from the path of justice so evidently that he even at times laid
claim to immortality; and in writing letters with his own hand, would
style himself lord of the whole world; a thing which, if others had
said, any one ought to have been indignant at, who laboured with proper
diligence to form his life and habits in emulation of the constitutional
princes who had preceded him, as he professed to do.

4. For even if he had under his power the infinities of worlds fancied
by Democritus, as Alexander the Great, under the promptings of
Anaxarchus, did fancy, yet either by reading, or by hearing others
speak, he might have considered that (as mathematicians unanimously
agree) the circumference of the whole earth, immense as it seems to us,
is nevertheless not bigger than a pin's point as compared with the
greatness of the universe.

II.

Sec. 1. And now, after the pitiable death of the Caesar, the trumpet of
judicial dangers sounded the alarm, and Ursicinus was impeached of
treason, envy gaining more and more strength every day to attack his
safety; envy which is inimical to all powerful men.

2. For he was overcome by this difficulty, that, while the ears of the
emperor were shut against all defences which were reasonable and easy of
proof, they were open to all the secret whispers of calumniators, who
pretended that his name was almost disused among all the districts of
the East, and that Ursicinus was urged by them both privately and
publicly to be their commander, as one who could be formidable to the
Persian nation.

3. But this magnanimous man stood his ground immovably against whatever
might happen, only taking care not to throw himself away in an abject
manner, and grieving from his heart that innocence had no safe
foundation on which to stand. And the more sad also for this
consideration, that before these events took place many of his friends
had gone over to other more powerful persons, as in cases of official
dignity the lictors go over to the successors of former officers.

4. His colleague Arbetio was attacking him by cajoling words of feigned
good-will, often publicly speaking of him as a virtuous and brave man;
Arbetio being a man of great cunning in laying snares for men of simple
life, and one who at that season enjoyed too much power. For as a
serpent that has its hole underground and hidden from the