Res Gestae

His lawlessness now more widely extended, Caesar became offensive to all good men, and henceforth showing no restraint, he harassed all parts of the East, sparing neither ex-magistrates nor the chief men of the cities, nor even the plebeians.

Finally, he ordered the death of the leaders of the senate of Antioch[*](The great Syrian city; see Index.) in a single writ, enraged because when he urged a prompt introduction of cheap prices at an unseasonable time, since scarcity threatened, they had made a more vigorous reply then was fitting. And they would have perished to a man, had not Honoratus, then count-governor[*](See Introd., pp. xviii f.) of the East, opposed him with firm resolution.

This also was a sign of his savage nature which was neither obscure nor hidden, that he delighted in cruel sports; and sometimes in the Circus, absorbed in six or seven contests, he exulted in the sight of boxers pounding each other to death and drenched with blood, as if he had made some great gain.

Besides this, his propensity for doing harm was inflamed and incited by a worthless woman, who, on being admitted to the palace (as she had demanded) had betrayed a plot that was secretly

After this, when Gallus was on the point of leaving for Hierapolis, ostensibly to take part in the campaign, and the commons of Antioch suppliantly besought him to save them from the fear of a famine, which, through many difficulties of circumstance, was then believed to be imminent, he did not, after the manner of princes whose widely extended power sometimes cures local troubles, make any arrangements or command the bringing of supplies from neighbouring provinces; but to the multitude, which was in fear of the direst necessity, he delivered up Theophilus, consular governor of Syria, who was standing near by, constantly repeating the statement, that no one could lack food if the governor did not wish it.

These words increased the audacity of the lowest classes, and when the lack of provisions became more acute, driven by hunger and rage, they set fire to the pretentious house of a certain Eubulus, a man of distinction among his own people; then, as if the governor had been delivered into their hands by an imperial edict, they assailed him with kicks and blows, and trampling him under foot when he was half-dead, with awful mutilation tore him to pieces. After his wretched death each man saw in the end of one person an image of his own

At that same time Serenianus, a former general, through whose inefficiency Celse in Phoenicia had been pillaged, as we have described,[*](In a lost book.) was justly and legally tried for high treason, and it was doubtful by what favour he could be acquitted; for it was clearly proved that he had enchanted by forbidden arts a cap which he used to wear, and sent a friend of his with it to a prophetic shrine, to seek for omens as to whether the imperial power was destined to be firmly and safely his, as he desired.