hat some
filthy clowns and buffoons, disgusting in appearance, with still more
disgusting names and habits, had been made extremely wealthy by Commodus
on account of their wantonness and licentiousness; accordingly, he made
public their titles and the amounts they had acquired. The former caused
laughter and the latter wrath and grief, for there were some of them that
possessed just the sums for which the emperor had slain numbers of
senators. However, Laetus did not remain permanently loyal to Pertinax, or
perhaps we might even say not for a moment. Since he did not get what he
wanted, he proceeded to incite the soldiers against him (as will be
related).

[Sidenote:--7--] Pertinax appointed as prefect of the city his
father-in-law, Flavius Sulpicianus, a man who in any case deserved the
position. Yet he was unwilling to make his wife Augusta or his son Caesar,
though we voted him permission. He rejected emphatically each proposition,
whether because he had not yet firmly rooted his own power, or because he
did not choose to let his unchaste consort sully the name of Augusta. As
for his son, who was still a child, he did not care to have him spoiled by
the dignity [Footnote: Reading [Greek: ogkho] (Reimar) for the MS. [Greek:
horkho].] and the hope implied in the name before he should be educated.
Indeed, he would not even bring him up in the palace, but on the very
first day of his sovereignty he put aside everything that had belonged to
him previously and divided it between his children--he had also a
daughter--and gave orders that they should live at their grandfather's
house; there he visited them occasionally in the capacity of father and
not of emperor.

[Sidenote:--8--] Now, since the soldiers were no longer allowed to plunder
nor the Caesarians to indulge their licentiousness, they hated him
bitterly. The Caesarians attempted no revolt, because they were unarmed,
but the Pretorian soldiers and Laetus formed a plot against him. In the
first place they selected Falco the consul for emperor, because he was
prominent for both wealth and family, and purposed to bring him to the
camp while Pertinax was at the coast investigating the corn supply. The
latter, learning of the plan, returned in haste to the City, and coming
before the senate said: "You should not be ignorant, Conscript Fathers,
that though I found but twenty-five myriad denarii, I have distributed as
much to the soldiers as did Marcus and Lucius, to whom