after so short an advance, rushed upon them without a thought that the whole intervening space could not be easily traversed.  When they reached the trenches they were involved in a fearful catastrophe.  The men in the front ranks as soon as the surface covering broke through fell into the excavations and those immediately behind stumbled over them, slipped, and likewise fell.  The rest crowded back in terror, their retreat being so sudden that they themselves lost their footing, upset those in the rear, and pushed them into a deep ravine.  Of course there was a terrible slaughter of these soldiers as well as of those who had fallen into the trenches, horses and men perishing in one wild mass.  In the midst of this tumult the warriors between the ravine and the trenches were annihilated by showers of stones and arrows.

Severus seeing this came to their assistance with the Pretorians, but this step proved of so little benefit that he came near causing the ruin of the Pretorians and himself ran some risk through the loss of a horse.  When he saw all his men in flight, he tore off his riding cloak and drawing his sword rushed among the fugitives, hoping either that they would be ashamed and turn back or that he might himself perish with them.  Some did stop when they saw him in such an attitude, and turned back.  Brought in this way face to face with the men close behind them they cut down not a few of them, thinking them to be followers of Albinus, and routed all their pursuers.  At this moment the cavalry under Laetus came up from the side and decided the rest of the issue for them.  Laetus, so long as the struggle was close, remained inactive, hoping that both parties would be destroyed and that whatever soldiers were left on both sides would give him supreme authority.  When, however, he saw Severus’s party getting the upper hand, he contributed to the result.  So it was that Severus conquered.

[Sidenote:—­7—­] Roman power had suffered a severe blow, since the numbers that fell on each side were beyond reckoning.  Many even of the victors deplored the disaster, for the entire plain was seen to be covered with the bodies of men and horses.  Some of them lay there exhausted by many wounds, others thoroughly mangled, and still others unwounded but buried under heaps.  Weapons had been tossed about and blood flowed in streams, even swelling the rivers.  Albinus took refuge in a house located near the Rhone, but when he saw all its environs guarded, he slew himself.  I am not telling what Severus wrote about it, but what actually took place.  The emperor after inspecting his body and feasting his eyes upon it to the full while he let his tongue indulge in appropriate utterances, ordered it,—­all but the head,—­to be cast out, and that he sent to Rome to be exposed on a cross.  As he showed clearly by this action that he was very far from being an excellent ruler, he alarmed even more than before the populace and us by the commands which he issued.  Now that he