[Sidenote:--7--] [lacuna] Another pair executed were Verus, who had likewise mustered courage to make an attempt upon the sovereignty while in the midst of the third (Gallic) legion, which he was commanding; and Gellius Maximus, on the same sort of charge, though he was lieutenant in Syria proper and at the head of the fourth (Scythian) legion. For to such an extent had everything got upside down, that these men, too, one of whom had been enrolled in the senate from the ranks of the centurions and the other of whom was the son of a physician, took it into their heads to aim at the imperial office. I have mentioned them alone by name, not so much because they were the only ones who appeared entirely insane as because they belonged to the senate; for other attempts were made. A certain centurion's son undertook to throw into disorder the same Gallic legion, and another, a worker in wool, tampered with the Fourth, and a third, a private citizen, with the fleet in harbor at Cyzicus when the False Antoninus was wintering at Nicomedea. And there were many others elsewhere, so that it became a very ordinary thing for those who so wished to hazard the chance of fomenting rebellion and becoming emperor. They were encouraged partly by the fact that many persons had entered upon the supreme office without expecting or deserving it. Let no one be incredulous of my statements, for the facts about the private citizens I ascertained from men who are worthy of confidence, and of what I have written about the fleet I gained an exact knowledge in Pergamum, close at hand, the affairs of which, as also of Smyrna, I managed, having been assigned to duty there by Macrinus. And in view of this attempt none of the others seemed at all incredible to me.