f the Pretorians). He committed no act of luxury or
haughtiness, but lived like one of the multitude: the entire day he spent
in proximity to the palace and often he would go there even shortly before
midnight, when some of the others were beginning to sleep. A
characteristic anecdote is that which brings in the name of Cornelius
Fronto, at this time reputed to be the foremost Roman advocate in
lawsuits. One evening very late he was returning home from dinner and
ascertained from a man whose counsel he had promised to be that Turbo was
holding court. Accordingly, just as he was, in his dress for dinner, he
went into his courtroom and greeted him not with the morning salutation,
_I wish you joy_, but with that belonging to the evening, _I trust
your health continues good_.

Turbo was never seen at home in the daytime even when he was sick; and to
Hadrian, who advised him to remain quiet, he replied: "The prefect ought
to die on his feet."

[Sidenote:--19--] Similis, who was of greater age and more advanced rank,
in character was second to none of the great men, I think. Very slight
things may serve us as evidence. When he was centurion, Trajan had
summoned him to enter his presence before the prefects, whereupon he said:
"It is a shame for you, Caesar, to be talking with a centurion, while the
prefects stand outside." And he took unwillingly at that time the command
of the Pretorians, and after taking it resigned it. Having with difficulty
secured his release he spent the rest of his life, seven years, quietly in
the country, and upon his tomb he had this inscription placed: "Similis
lies here, who existed so-and-so many years, but lived for seven."

Julius (?) Fabius (?), not being able to endure his
son's effeminacy, desired to throw himself into the river.

[Sidenote: A.D. 138 (a.u. 891)] [Sidenote:--20--] Hadrian became
consumptive as a result of the great loss of blood, and that led to
dropsy. And as it happened that Lucius Commodus was suddenly removed from
the scene by the outgushing of a large quantity of blood all at once, he
convened at his house the foremost and most renowned of the senators; and
lying on a couch he spoke to them as follows: "I, my friends, was not
permitted by nature to secure offspring, but you have made it possible by
legal enactment. There is this difference between the two ways,--that a
begotten son turns out to be whatever sort of person Heaven pleases,
whereas one that is adopted a m