throughout Italy; and formed a camp at Rome for the pretorian cohorts,
which, till then, had been quartered in the city. He suppressed with
great severity all tumults of the people on their first breaking out; and
took every precaution to prevent them. Some persons having been killed
in a quarrel which happened in the theatre, he banished the leaders of
the parties, and the players about whom the disturbance had arisen; nor
could all the entreaties of the people afterwards prevail upon him to
recall them [336]. The people of Pollentia having refused to permit the
removal of the corpse of a centurion of the first rank from the forum,
until they had extorted from his heirs a sum of money for a public
exhibition of gladiators, he detached a cohort from the city, and another
from the kingdom of Cottius [337]; who concealing the cause of their
march, entered the town by different gates, with their arms suddenly
displayed, and trumpets sounding; and having seized the greatest part of
the people, and the magistrates, they were imprisoned for life. He
abolished every where the privileges of all places of refuge. The
Cyzicenians having committed an outrage upon some Romans, he deprived
them of the liberty they had obtained for their good services in the
Mithridatic war. Disturbances from foreign enemies he quelled by his
lieutenants, without ever going against them in person; nor would he even
employ his lieutenants, but with much reluctance, and when it was
absolutely necessary. Princes who were ill-affected towards him, he kept
in subjection, more by menaces and remonstrances, than by force of arms.
Some whom he induced to come to him by fair words and promises, he never
would permit to return home; as Maraboduus the German, Thrascypolis the
(217) Thracian, and Archelaus the Cappadocian, whose kingdom he even
reduced into the form of a province.

XXXVIII. He never set foot outside the gates of Rome, for two years
together, from the time he assumed the supreme power; and after that