This, then, was what happened that year. Euphrates the philosopher also died a death of his own choosing; and Hadrian assented to his drinking hemlock in consideration of his extreme age and sickliness. [Sidenote:--9--] Hadrian went from one province to another, visiting the districts and cities and observing all the garrisons and fortifications. Some of these he removed to more desirable locations, some he abolished, and he founded some new ones. He personally oversaw and investigated absolutely everything, not merely the usual appurtenances of camps,--I mean weapons and engines and ditches and enclosures and palisades,--but also the private affairs of each one, and the lives, the dwellings and the characters both of the men serving in the organization, and of the commanders themselves. Many cases of too delicate living and equipment he harmonized with military needs and reformed in various ways. He exercised the men in every variety of battle, honoring some and reproving others. He taught all of them what they ought to do. And to make sure that they should obtain benefit from observing _him_, he led everywhere a severe existence and walked or rode horseback on all occasions. Never at this period did he enter either a chariot or a four-wheeled vehicle. He covered his head neither in heat nor in cold, but alike in Celtic snows and under scorching Egyptian suns he went about with it bare. [Sidenote: A.D. 119 (a.u. 872)] In fine, so thoroughly by action and exhortations did he train and discipline the whole military force throughout the whole empire that even now the methods then introduced by him are the soldiers' law of campaigning. This best explains why he lived for the most part at peace with foreign nations. As they saw what support he had and were victims of no injustice, but instead received money, they made no uprising. So excellently had his soldiery been trained, that the cavalry of the so-called Batavians swam the Ister with their heavy armor on. Seeing this the barbarians stood in terror of the Romans, and turning their attention to their own affairs [Footnote: Reading [Greek: epi] (Dindorf) instead of [Greek: peri]] they employed Hadrian as an arbitrator of their differences. [Sidenote:--10--] He also constructed theatres and held games as he traveled about from city to city, dispensing, however, with the imperial paraphernalia. This he never used outside of Rome. His own country, though he did her great honor and bestowed many proud possessions on her, he nevertheless did not set eyes upon.