d manners--by every part of my own conduct; and
I am glad to feel that in whatever instances the republic, like an
imperious mother, has exposed me deliberately to danger, I have stood
firm, inured to brave all fortuitous disturbing events.

19. "Nor am I ashamed to confess that I have long known, from prophecy,
that I should fall by the sword. And therefore do I venerate the
everlasting God that I now die, not by any secret treachery, nor by a
long or severe disease, or like a condemned criminal, but I quit the
world with honour, fairly earned, in the midst of a career of nourishing
glory. For, to any impartial judge, that man is base and cowardly who
seeks to die when he ought not, or who avoids death when it is
seasonable for him.

20. "This is enough for me to say, since my strength is failing me; but
I designedly forbear to speak of creating a new emperor, lest I should
unintentionally pass over some worthy man; or, on the other hand, if I
should name one whom I think proper, I should expose him to danger in
the event of some one else being preferred. But, as an honest child of
the republic, I hope that a good sovereign will be found to succeed me."

21. After having spoken quietly to this effect, he, as it were with the
last effort of his pen, distributed his private property among his
dearest friends, asking for Anatolius, the master of the offices. And
when the prefect Sallust replied that he was now happy, he understood
that he was slain, and bitterly bewailed the death of his friend, though
he had so proudly disregarded his own.

22. And as all around were weeping, he reproved them with still
undiminished authority, saying that it was a humiliating thing to mourn
for an emperor who was just united to heaven and the stars.

23. And as they then became silent, he entered into an intricate
discussion with the philosophers Maximus and Priscus on the sublime
nature of the soul, while the wound of his pierced side was gaping wide.
At last the swelling of his veins began to choke his breath, and having
drank some cold water, which he had asked for, he expired quietly about
midnight, in the thirty-first year of his age. He was born at
Constantinople, and in his childhood lost his father, Constantius, who,
after the death of his brother Constantine, perished amid the crowd of
competitors for the vacant crown. And at the same early age he lost his
mother, Basilina, a woman descended from a long line of noble ancesto