y to visit their wives, except
reluctantly, and in the winter season only. A Roman knight having cut
off the thumbs of his two young sons, to render them incapable of serving
in the wars, he exposed both him and his estate to public sale. But upon
observing the farmers of the revenue very greedy for the purchase, he
assigned him to a freedman of his own, that he might send him into the
country, and suffer him to retain his freedom. The tenth legion becoming
mutinous, he disbanded it with ignominy; and did the same by some others
which petulantly demanded their discharge; withholding from them the
rewards usually bestowed on those who had served their stated time in the
wars. The cohorts which yielded their ground in time of action, he
decimated, and fed with barley. Centurions, as well as common sentinels,
who deserted their posts when on guard, he punished with death. For
other misdemeanors he inflicted upon them various kinds of disgrace; such
as obliging them to stand all day before the praetorium, sometimes in
their tunics only, and without their belts, sometimes to carry poles ten
feet long, or sods of turf.

XXV. After the conclusion of the civil wars, he never, in any of his
military harangues, or proclamations, addressed them by the title of
"Fellow-soldiers," but as "Soldiers" only. Nor would he suffer them to
be otherwise called by his sons or step-sons, when they were in command;
judging the former epithet to convey the idea of a degree of
condescension inconsistent with military discipline, the maintenance of
order, and his own majesty, and that of his house. Unless at Rome, in
case of incendiary fires, or under the apprehension of public
disturbances during a scarcity of provisions, he never employed in his
army slaves who had been made freedmen, except upon two occasions; on
one, for the security of the colonies bordering upon Illyricum, and on
the other, to guard (88) the banks of the river Rhine. Although he
obliged persons of fortune, both male and female, to give up their
slaves, and they received their manumission at once, yet he kept them
together under their own standard, unmixed with soldiers who were better
born, and armed likewise after different fashion. Military rewards, such
as trappings, collars, and other decorations of gold and silver, he
distributed more readily than camp or mural crowns, which were reckoned
more honourable than the former. These he bestowed sparingly, without