ere are many and various instances in which, to put
the best construction on them, he acted with great harshness, still it
will be sufficient to enumerate a few, which are notorious and commonly
spoken of, seeming to be done in rivalry of the deeds which were
committed at Rome; for the principle of good and bad actions is the same
everywhere, even if the importance of the circumstances be unequal.

25. There was a philosopher named Caeranius, a man of no inconsiderable
merit, whom he put to death with the most cruel tortures, and without
any one coming forward to avenge him, because, when writing familiarly
to his wife, he had put a postscript in Greek, "+sy de noei, kai
stephe ten pylen.+"--"Do you take care and adorn the gate," which is a
common expression to let the hearer know that something of importance is
to be done.

26. There was a certain simple old woman who was wont to cure
intermittent fever by a gentle incantation, whom he put to death as a
witch, after she had been summoned, with his consent, to his daughter,
and had cured her.

27. There was a certain citizen of high respectability, among whose
papers, when they were searched by the officers on some business or
other, was found the nativity of some one of the name of Valens. He,
when asked on what account he had troubled himself about the star of the
emperor, had repelled the accusation by declaring that it was his own
brother Valens whose nativity was thus found, and when he promised to
bring abundant proof that he had long been dead, the judges would not
wait for evidence of the truth of his assertion, but put him to the
torture and cruelly slew him.

28. A young man was seen in the bath to put the fingers of each hand
alternately against the marble and against his own chest, and then to
repeat the names of the seven vowels, fancying that a remedy for a pain
in the stomach. For this he was brought before the court, put to the
torture, and then beheaded.

III.

Sec. 1. These events, and the account of Gaul to which I am now about to
proceed, will cause some interruption to the narration of occurrences in
the metropolis. Among many terrible circumstances, I find that Maximin
was still prefect, who by the wide extent of his power was a cruel
prompter to the emperor, who combined the most unrestrained licence with
unbounded power. Whoever, therefore, considers what I have related, must
also reflect on the other facts which have been passed over, a