result.  Before he closed his eyes he is reputed to have spoken these words to his children (I shall use the exact phraseology without embellishment):  “Be harmonious, enrich the soldiers, scorn everybody else.”  After this his body arrayed in military garb was placed upon a pyre, and as a mark of honor the soldiers and his children ran about it.  Those present who had any military gifts threw them upon it and the sons applied the fire.  Later his bones were put in a jar of purple stone, conveyed to Rome, and deposited in the tomb of the Antonines.  It is said that Severus sent for the jar a little before his death and after feeling it over remarked:  “Thou shalt hold a man that the world could not hold.”

[Sidenote:—­16—­] He was slow-moulded but strong, though he eventually grew very weak from gout:  mentally he was very keen and very firm.  He wished for more education than he got and for this reason he was sagacious rather than a good talker.  Toward friends not forgetful, to enemies most oppressive, he was capable of everything that he desired to accomplish but careless of everything said about him.  Hence he gathered money from every source (save that he killed no one to get it) [and met all necessary expenditures quite ungrudgingly.  He restored very many of the ancient buildings and inscribed upon them his own name to signify that he had repaired them so as to be new structures, and from his private funds.  Also he spent a great deal uselessly upon renovating and repairing other places], erecting, for instance, to Bacchus and Hercules a temple of huge size.  Yet, though his expenses were enormous, he left behind not merely a few myriad denarii, easily reckoned, but a great many.  Again, he rebuked such persons as were not chaste, even going to the extent of enacting certain laws in regard to adultery, with the result that there were any number of prosecutions for that offence.  When consul I once found three thousand entered on the docket.  But inasmuch as very few persons appeared to conduct their cases, he too ceased to trouble his head about it.  Apropos of this, a quite witty remark is reported of the wife of Argentocoxus, a Caledonian, to Julia Augusta, when the latter after the treaty was joking her about the free intercourse of her sex in Britain with men.  Thereupon the foreigner asserted:  “We fulfill the necessities of nature in a much better way than you Roman women.  We have dealings openly with the best men, whereas you let yourselves be debauched in secret by the vilest.”  This is what the British woman said.

[Sidenote:—­17—­] The following is the style of life that Severus led in time of peace.  He was sure to be doing something before dawn, while it was still night, and after this he would go to walk, telling and hearing of the interests of the empire.  Then he held court, and separately (unless there were some great festival); and indeed, he did this very well.  Those on trial were allowed plenty of water [Footnote:  The water-clock again.