Imperator, Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus, Augustus, Pius, Beatus, Sarmaticus, Germanicus, Maximus, Britannicus, Peacemaker of the World, Invincible, Roman Hercules, High Priest, Holder of Tribunician Authority for the eighteenth term, Imperator for the eighth time, Consul for the seventh time, Father of the Fatherland, to consuls, praetors, tribunes and the Commodian Fortunate Senate, Greeting.”  Great numbers of statues were erected displaying him in the garb of Hercules.  And it was voted that his age should be called the “Golden Age” and that entries to correspond with this should in every case be made in the records.

[Sidenote:—­16—­] Now this Golden One, this Hercules, this God (such was another designation of his) one day in the afternoon rode suddenly from the suburbs with haste into Rome and conducted thirty horse-races in two hours.  These proceedings had much to do with his running short of money.  He was also fond of bestowing gifts and frequently presented the populace with one hundred and forty denarii apiece.  But most of his expenditures were for the objects that I have mentioned. [So it was that neither his general income nor what was provided by Cleander (though incalculable in amount) sufficed him, and he was compelled to bring charges against both women and men,—­charges not serious enough for capital punishment but prolific in threats and terror.] Some of these persons he murdered, to others he sold preservation in return for their property [and got something from them by constraint under the pretence that it was a voluntary offering].  And finally on his birthday he ordered us, our wives, and our children each to contribute two aurei [a year as] a kind of first-fruits, and the senators in all the other cities five denarii per head. [Of this, too, he saved not the smallest part, but spent it all disgracefully on beasts and gladiators.]

[Sidenote:  A.D. 192 (a.u. 945)] [Sidenote:—­17—­] In public he nowhere drove chariots except sometimes on a moonless night.  He became very desirous to play the character also in public, but, being ashamed to be seen doing this, he kept it up constantly at home, wearing the Green uniform.  Beasts, moreover, in large numbers were slaughtered at his house and many also in public.  Again, he would contend as gladiator:  (at home he killed a man in this way, and, in pretending to shave others, instead of taking off the hairs he sliced off one man’s nose, another’s ears, and some other feature of a third;) but in public his contests were [Footnote:  It is just barely possible that the original gave some different idea from “his contests were” (cp. the text of Boissee).] minus the steel and human blood.  Before entering the theatre he would put on a cleeved tonic of silk, white interwoven with gold, and we greeted him standing there in this attire.  When he actually went in he donned a pure purple dress sprinkled with gold, assuming also a similar chlamys of Greek pattern and a crown made of Indic gems and gold, and carried such a herald’s staff as Mercury does.  The lion skin and club were carried before him along the streets, and at the theatres were invariably placed on a gilded chair, whether he was present or absent.  He himself would enter the theatre in the garb of Mercury, and casting off everything else begin his performance in simple tunic and unshod.