from what he had himself discovered, he deemed to be especially deserving of hatred.  These were Manilius and Julius, and moreover Sulpicius Arrhenianus, who had blackmailed, among others, Bassus, the son of Pomponius, whose lieutenant he had been when Bassus was governor of Moesia.  These men were banished to islands, as the emperor expressly forbade their being put to death.  “We would avoid,”—­he wrote—­these were his very words,—­“ourselves appearing to do the things for which we censure them.”—­And Lucius Priscillianus [whose name was presented by the senate itself,] was as much renowned for his insulting behavior as he was for his killing of wild beasts. [He fought them at Tusculum every now and then, and contended with so many each time that he bore the scars of their bites.] Once he, unassisted, joined battle with a bear and panther, a lioness and lion at once, but far more numerous were the men, both knights and senators, whom he destroyed as a result of his slanders. [For both of these achievements] he was greatly honored by Caracalla [was enrolled among the ex-praetors and became (contrary to precedent) governor of Achaea.  He incurred the violent hatred of the senate, was summoned for trial] and was confined upon an island.  These men, then, came to their end as described.

[Sidenote:—­22—­] And Flaccus was entrusted also with the dispensation of food stuffs,—­an office which Manilius had formerly held,—­for he had secured [Footnote:  Reading [Greek:  eilaephos] (Reimar).] it (with the added ratification of Macrinus) as a reward of his information against him; and he was subsequently made superintendent of the distribution of dole which took place at the games given by the major praetors, save those celebrated in honor of Flora [lacuna] moreover the iuridici possessing authority in Italy had to stop rendering decisions outside the traditional limits set by Marcus. [Footnote:  The text of the early part of this chapter may be characterized as “jagged.”  The sentences lack clearness and the relation of the individual words is not always certain.  The reader may be interested to see a translation of Hirschfeld’s interpretation of the section, taken from his book entitled Untersuchungen auf dem Gebiete der Roemischen Verwaltungsgeschichte (pp. 117-120).

a [Flaccus]—­It is here a question of a high senatorial office, which can only be the praefectura alimentorum.

b [The iuridici]—­Perhaps the person entrusted with the execution of this ruling was C. Octavius Sabinus, who had the title of electus ad corrigendum statum Italiae.

c [The orphans]—­Probably during the latter portion of Caracalla’s reign, as also under Commodus, the funds for food had been available either not at all or at irregular intervals, and therefore the restitution of district prefects was determined upon.