it had crumbled away in spots, and had rendered
it larger and more beautiful. For these deeds he was better satisfied to
be loved than honored. His meetings with the people were marked by
affability and his intercourse with the senate by dignity. He was loved by
all and dreaded by none save the enemy. He joined people in hunting and
banquets, and in work and plans and jokes. Often he would make a fourth in
somebody's litter, and sometimes he would enter persons' houses even
without a guard and make himself at home. He lacked education in the exact
sense,--book-learning, at least,--but he both understood and carried out
its spirit, and there was no quality of his that was not _excellent_.
I know well enough that he was given to wine and boys, but if he had ever
committed or endured any base or wicked deed as a result of this, he would
have incurred censure. As the case stood, he drank all the wine he wanted,
yet remained sober, and his pursuit of pederasty harmed no one. And even
if he did delight in war, still he was satisfied with success in it,--with
overthrowing a most hostile element and bettering his own side. Nor did
the usual thing under such circumstances,--conceit and arrogance on the
part of the soldiers,--ever manifest itself during his reign; with such a
firm hand did he rule them. For these reasons Decebalus was somewhat
justified in fearing him.

[Sidenote:--8--] When Trajan, in the course of his campaign against the
Dacians had come near Tapai, where the barbarians were encamping, a large
mushroom was brought to him, on which it said in Latin characters that the
Buri and other allies advised Trajan to turn back and make peace. At
Trajan's first encounter with the foe he visited many of the wounded on
his own side and killed many of the enemy. And when the bandages gave out,
he is said not to have spared even his own clothing, but to have cut it up
into strips. In honor of the soldiers that had died in battle he ordered
an altar erected and the performance of funeral rites annually.

[Sidenote:--9--] [Decebalus had sent envoys also before the defeat, and no
longer the long-haired men, as before, but the chief among the
cap-wearers. [Footnote: Latin, _pileati_. The distinction drawn is
that between the plebeians and the _nobles_, to whom reference is
made respectively by the terms "unshorn" and "covered." Compare here the
make up of the Marcomanian embassy in Book Seventy-two, chapter two.]
These threw dow