When Diocletian's army approached so close, however, that there could no longer be any doubt as to the danger, the imperial generals urgently pressed the Imperator to prepare for war, and Carinus gathered his troops from the European provinces. Suddenly the rumour spread that Carinus would command his army in person. He could be seen at two military exercises, the reviews of the troops. Manlius was always at his side, constantly stimulating his vanity or his jealousy by entreating him not to leave the victories to his leaders or commit the course of the campaign to their knowledge and prudence. "The victorious general is a new foe," Manlius was in the habit of saying, and the Imperator assumed the chief command of the assembled forces, and produced no bad effect mounted on his grey charger and clad in a suit of gold armour, with a purple striped violet mantle floating around his shoulders. On the day before the departure of the army, the leaders went to all the temples in turn, offering sacrifices everywhere, even on the altars of the Egyptian gods. Manlius assisted in bringing the animals selected for victims to the haruspex. The populace listened in solemn devotion to the augur's words. Quaterquartus extended his arms and, with closed eyes, said, in deep tones: "This battle will ruin the enemy of Rome." True, he did not say whom he considered the enemy of Rome--whether Diocletian or Carinus. At last the imperial procession reached Cybele's temple. Amid a deafening uproar of drums and blaring trumpets, the frantic priestesses were dancing in the open portico, stabbing their bodies with knives, muttering with foaming lips incomprehensible words, and whirling around till, overcome by giddiness, they fell to the floor. Suddenly a shriek, shriller, more terrible than any other sound in this inharmonious uproar, rang above the din; a shriek so piercing, so heart-rending, that every one gazed trembling in the direction of the sound. A woman's tall figure stood beneath the pillars; a long white mantle, which she clutched with both hands, floated from her head to her feet. "Woe betide thee, Rome! Woe betide ye, Roman people! Woe betide thee, Imperator of Rome!" The woman came out into the portico and, as she fixed her cold, expressionless eyes upon the throng, Carinus, seized with horror, grasped the hand of Manlius, who stood by his side. "That is Glyceria." Manlius also shrank back in terror. The madwoman, with the face of a prophetess, stood upon the steps of the temple.