His person was hardy and
equal to fatigues; his spirit daring but covered; sedulous to disguise his
own counsels, dexterous to blacken others; alike fawning and imperious; to
appearance exactly modest; but in his heart fostering the lust of
domination; and, with this view, engaged at one time in profusion,
largesses, and luxury; and again, often laid out in application and
vigilance; qualities no less pernicious, when personated by ambition for
the acquiring of Empire.
The authority of his command over the guards, which was but moderate
before his time, he extended, by gathering into one camp all the
Praetorian cohorts then dispersed over the city; that thus united, they
might all at once receive his orders, and by continually beholding their
own numbers and strength, conceive confidence in themselves and prove a
terror to all other men. He pretended, "that the soldiers, while they
lived scattered, lived loose and debauched; that when gathered into a
body, there could, in any hasty emergency, be more reliance upon their
succour; and that when encamped, remote from the allurements of the town,
they would in their discipline be more exact and severe.
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