Now the barbarians took refuge in the mountains and across the Tigris in order to perfect their preparations. But Antoninus suppressed this fact and, assuming that he had utterly vanquished a foe whom he had not even seen, he displayed becoming pride; and, as he himself wrote, he was particularly gratified because a lion ran down from the mountains and fought on his side. [Sidenote:--2--] Not only in other ways did he live unnaturally and transgress laws, but in his very campaigns [[lacuna] but truth; [Footnote: Here begins the parchment codex, Vaticanus 1288. See Volume I, page 8.] for I have run across the book written by him about it. He understood so well how he stood with all the senators that, in spite of many protests, their slaves and freedmen and intimate friends were arrested by him and were asked under torture whether "so-and-so loves me" or "so-and-so hates me." For the charts of the stars under which any of his foremost courtiers had been born gave evidence, he said, as to who was friendly to him and who was hostile. And on this basis he honored many persons and destroyed many others. [Sidenote: A.D. 217 (_a.u._ 970)] [Sidenote:--3--] When the Parthians and the Medes, greatly enraged at the treatment they had received, equipped a large body of troops, he fell into an ecstasy of terror. He was very bold in threats and very reckless in daring, but very cowardly in following a slow course involving danger, and very weak in hard labor. He could no longer bear either great heat or armor, and consequently wore sleeved tunics made in such a shape as more or less to resemble breastplates. Thus having the appearance of armor without its weight he could be safe from plots and also arouse admiration. He often used these garments when not in battle. He wore also a cavalry cloak, now all purple, now purple with white threads, and again of white with purple threads, and also red. In Syria and in Mesopotamia he used Celtic clothing and shoes. He furthermore invented a costume of his own by cutting out cloth and stitching it up, barbaric fashion, into a kind of cloak. He himself wore it very constantly, so that it led to his being called Caracalla, [Footnote: A word of Celtic origin, signifying a long, ulster-like tunic plus a hood. This was a Gallic dress.] and he prescribed it by preference as the dress for the soldiers. The barbarians saw what sort of person he was and also heard that his men were enervated through their previous luxury; for, to give an instance of their behavior, the Romans passed the winter in houses, making use of everything belonging to their entertainers as if it were their own. [They further perceived that their opponents had become so physically worn and so dejected in spirit by their toils and by the hardships which they were now undergoing that they no longer heeded the presents which they kept receiving from their commander.] Elated, therefore, to think