Did the Praetorian Guards, they who
had double pay, they who after sixteen years' service were paid off and
sent home, bear severer difficulties, undergo superior dangers? He did not
mean to detract from the merit of their brethren the City guards; their
own lot however it was, to be placed amongst horrid and barbarous nations,
nor could they look from their tents, but they saw the foe."
The whole crowd received this harangue with shouts of applause; but from
various instigations. Some displayed upon their bodies the obvious
impressions of stripes, others their hoary heads, many their vestments
ragged and curtailed, with backs utterly bare; as did all, their various
griefs, in the bitterness of reproach. At length to such excessive fury
they grew, that they proposed to incorporate the three legions into one;
nor by aught but emulation was the project defeated: for to his own legion
every man claimed the prerogative of swallowing and denominating the other
two. They took another method, and placed the three Eagles of the legions,
with the standards of the several cohorts, altogether without rank or
priority; then forthwith digged turf and were rearing a tribunal, one high
enough to be seen at a distance.
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