the ante-chamber, so that we had to stand about outside somewhere.  Usually at a late hour he decided that he would not even exchange greetings with us that day.  Meanwhile he was largely engaged in gratifying his inquisitiveness, as I said, or was driving chariots, killing beasts, fighting as a gladiator, drinking, enjoying the consequent big head, mixing great bowls (beside their other food) for the soldiers that kept guard over him within, and sending round cups of wine (this last before our very face and eyes).  At the conclusion of all this, once in a while he would hold court.

[Sidenote:  A.D. 214-215] [Sidenote:—­18—­] That was his behavior while in winter-quarters at Nicomedea.  He also trained the Macedonian phalanx.  He constructed two very large engines for the Armenian and for the Parthian war, so that he could take them to pieces and carry them over on boats into Syria.  For the rest, he was staining himself with more blood and transgressing laws and using up money.  Neither in these matters nor in any others did he heed his mother, who gave him much excellent advice.  This in spite of the fact that he entrusted to her the management of the books and letters both, save the very important ones, and that he inscribed her name with many praises in his letters to the senate, mentioning it in the same connection as his own and that of his armies, i.e., with a statement that she was safe.  Need it be mentioned that she greeted publicly all the foremost men, just as her son did?  But she continued more and more her study of philosophy with these persons.  He kept declaring that he needed nothing beyond necessities, and gave himself airs over the fact that he could get along with the cheapest kind of living.  Yet there was nothing on earth or in the sea or in the air that we did not keep furnishing him privately and publicly. [Of these articles he used extremely few for the benefit of the friends with him (for he no longer cared to dine with us), but the most of them he consumed with his freedmen.  Such was his delight in magicians and jugglers that he commended and honored Apollonius [Footnote:  The famous Apollonius of Tyana.] of Cappadocia, who had flourished in Domitian’s reign and was a thoroughgoing juggler and magician; and he erected a heroum to his memory.

[Sidenote:  A.D. 215 (a.u. 968)] [Sidenote:—­19—­] The pretext for his campaign against the Parthians was that Vologaesus had not acceded to his request for the extradition of Tiridates and a certain Antiochus with him.  Antiochus was a Cilician and pretended at first to be a philosopher of the cynic school.  In this way he was of very great assistance to the soldiers in warfare.  He strengthened them against the despair caused by the excessive cold, for he threw himself into the snow and rolled in it; and as a result he obtained money and honors from Severus himself and from Antoninus.  Elated at this, he attached himself to Tiridates and in his company deserted to the Parthian prince.