Gallieni Duo

When Valerian had been captured (for indeed, from where should the Life of Gallienus be begun, if not from that chief evil by which his life was abased?), with the commonwealth tottering, and Odenathus having already taken the empire of the East, Gallienus rejoiced when he learned of his father's captivity. Armies wandered everywhere, the commanders murmured in all the provinces, and there was an enormous grief in all that Valerian, a Roman emperor, was held in slavish bondage among the Persians; but there was also a greater sadness in all that Gallienus, having gained the empire, had ruined the commonwealth—the father by his fate, and he himself by his character. In the consulship, therefore, of Gallienus and Volusianus, Macrianus and Ballista came together in one place, summoned the remnants of the army, and, since the Roman empire was tottering in the East, asked whom they should make emperor—Gallienus conducting himself so negligently that no mention even was made of him among the army. In the end it was decided that they should name Macrianus, with his sons, emperors, and that they should undertake the defending of the commonwealth . . . so, then . . . the empire . . . was conferred . . . upon Macrianus . . . the reasons for Macrianus . . . ruling, together with his sons, were these: first, that no one of the commanders at that time was held to be wiser, no one fitter for governing affairs; then, that he was the richest, and one who could supply the public losses out of his private fortunes. To this was added that his children, the bravest of young men, rushed with their whole mind into war, so as to be an example to the legions for all the duties of soldiering.

Macrianus, therefore . . . sought auxiliaries from every quarter . . . the regions which he himself . . . had garrisoned . . . having been occupied by him, so that he might secure his empire; then he so arranged the war that it was equal to all the things which could be devised against him. The same Macrianus appointed Piso, one of the nobles and chief men of the senate, to Achaea, for this reason: that he might crush Valens, who was governing the commonwealth there with proconsular authority. But Valens, when he had learned that Piso was coming against him, assumed the empire. Piso, therefore, withdrew into Thessaly, where, soldiers having been sent by Valens, he was killed along with very many men. He too had been named emperor, with the surname Thessalicus. And Macrianus, having retained one of his sons in the East, affairs being now pacified, first came to Asia and made for Illyricum. In Illyricum he joined battle with a commander of the emperor Aureolus—who had assumed the empire against Gallienus—named Domitianus, having one of his sons with him and leading thirty thousand soldiers; but Macrianus was conquered, together with his son named Macrianus, and the whole army was surrendered to the emperor Aureolus.

The commonwealth being meanwhile thrown into confusion throughout the whole world, when Odenathus learned that Macrianus with his son had been killed, that Aureolus reigned, and that Gallienus conducted affairs too remissly, he hastened to capture, if fortune granted it, the other son of Macrianus, with his army. But those who were with the son of Macrianus, named Quietus, consenting at the instigation of Odenathus and of Macrianus's prefect Ballista, killed the young man, and, his body having been thrown over the wall, all surrendered themselves abundantly to Odenathus. Odenathus, therefore, became emperor of almost the whole East, while Aureolus held Illyricum and Gallienus held Rome. The same Ballista killed many of the people of Emesa, to whom the soldiers of Macrianus had fled, together with Quietus and the keeper of the treasures, so that the city was almost destroyed. Odenathus, meanwhile, as if he were acting the part of Gallienus, had everything truthfully reported to him. But Gallienus, when he learned that Macrianus with his children had been killed, as though secure in affairs and his father now recovered, gave himself up to lust and pleasure. He gave circus games and stage games, gymnastic games, a sportive hunt too, and gladiatorial games, and summoned the people to festivity and applause as if on days of victory; and although very many mourned his father's captivity, he, under the appearance of seemliness—because his father seemed to have been deceived through his zeal for valor—rejoiced beyond measure. It was agreed, moreover, that he had been unable to bear the censure of his parent, and that it had been a thing he prayed for, that he should no longer have the paternal gravity hanging over his neck.

About the same time Aemilianus assumed the empire in Egypt, and, the granaries having been seized, he oppressed many towns with the evil of famine; but Gallienus's commander Theodotus, having joined battle, captured him and, stripped of his imperial ornaments, sent him alive to Gallienus. Egypt after this was given to Theodotus; Aemilianus was strangled in prison; against the Thebaid soldiers too there was savagery, very many being killed. While Gallienus persisted in luxury and wickedness, and gave himself up to mockeries and gluttony, and conducted the commonwealth no otherwise than as boys, in their sport, feign offices of power, the Gauls—in whom it is inbred that they cannot endure princes who are frivolous and degenerate from Roman virtue and luxurious—called Postumus to the empire, with the armies too consenting, because they complained that the emperor was occupied with his lusts. Against him Gallienus himself led an army; and when he had begun to besiege the city in which Postumus was, the Gauls defending it fiercely, Gallienus, going round the walls, was struck by an arrow. For Postumus reigned for seven years and most stoutly vindicated the Gauls from all the barbarians flowing in around them. Compelled by these evils, Gallienus made peace with Aureolus, in his eagerness to assault Postumus; and, the war being drawn out long through various sieges and battles, he conducted the affair now successfully, now unsuccessfully. There had been added, besides, to these evils, that the Scythians had invaded Bithynia and destroyed cities. In the end they grievously laid waste Astacus, which was afterward called Nicomedia, having burned it. In the end, as if by a conspiracy of the whole world, the parts of the globe being shaken, even in Sicily there arose as it were a kind of servile war, with brigands roaming about, who were scarcely

put down. And all these things were happening through the contempt for Gallienus; for there is nothing more ready to embolden the bad to audacity, and the good to the hope of good things, than when an emperor is either feared as bad or scorned as dissolute. In the consulship of Gallienus and Faustianus, amid so many warlike disasters, there was also a most grievous earthquake and darkness for many days; thunder, besides, was heard, with the earth bellowing, not Jupiter thundering. By this convulsion many buildings were swallowed up together with their inhabitants, and many died of terror; which evil indeed was the sadder in the cities of Asia. Rome too was shaken, Libya too was shaken; there were chasms of the earth in very many places, with salt water appearing in the trenches; the seas too occupied many cities. The peace of the gods, therefore, was sought, the books of the Sibyl having been consulted, and a sacrifice was made to Jupiter the Savior, as had been prescribed. For so great a pestilence too had arisen, both at Rome and in the cities of Achaea, that in one day five thousand men perished of the same disease. Fortune raging—when on this side an earthquake, on that side chasms of the soil, and from various quarters a pestilence laid waste the Roman world, Valerian having been captured, the Gauls for the most part besieged, while Odenathus waged war, while Aureolus pressed hard upon Illyricum, while Aemilianus had seized Egypt—a part of the Goths . . . (which name, as was said above, was given to the Goths), the Thracian provinces having been seized, laid Macedonia waste, besieged Thessalonica, and nowhere was even moderate quiet displayed at all. All which things, as we have said more than once, were happening through the contempt for Gallienus, a most luxurious man, and, if he were secure, most ready for every disgrace.

There was fighting in Achaea, under the commander Marcianus, against these same Goths, whence, conquered, they withdrew through the lands of the Achaeans. The Scythians, moreover—that is, a part of the Goths—were laying Asia waste; the temple too of the Ephesian Moon was despoiled and burned, the fame of whose work is well enough known among the peoples. I am ashamed to relate, in the midst of these times, while these things were being done, what Gallienus, to the harm of the human race, often said as if in jest. For when it had been announced to him that Egypt had revolted, he is reported to have said: "What? Can we not be without Egyptian linen?" And when he had learned that Asia was laid waste, both by the convulsions of the elements and by the incursions of the Scythians, "What," he said, "can we not be without saltpeter?" When Gaul was lost, he is reported to have laughed and said: "Is the commonwealth not safe without Atrebatian cloaks?" Thus, in the end, about all the parts of the world, when he was losing them, he would jest, as though he seemed affected by the losses of cheap commodities. And, lest any evil be lacking to the times of Gallienus, the city of Byzantium, famous for its naval wars, the bar of the Pontus, was so utterly laid waste by the soldiers of this same Gallienus that absolutely no one survived. In the end no old family is found among the Byzantines, unless someone, occupied in travel or in military service, escaped, who might represent the antiquity and nobility of his line.

Against Postumus, therefore, Gallienus, with Aureolus and the commander Claudius—who afterward obtained the empire, the founder of the family of Constantius our Caesar—entered upon war; and since Postumus was aided by many auxiliaries, Celtic and Frankish, he advanced into the war with Victorinus, with whom he had shared the empire. The victorious side was that of Gallienus, several battles having been run through with a variation of outcomes. There was in Gallienus an audacity of sudden valor; for sometimes he was gravely moved by injuries. In the end, he advanced to take vengeance on the Byzantines; and when he did not think he could be received within the walls, having been received on another day, he killed all the soldiers, unarmed, surrounded by a ring of armed men, breaking the treaty which he had promised. About the same time the Scythians too in Asia, laid low by the valor and leadership of the Roman commanders, withdrew to their own homes. The soldiers, indeed, having been killed at Byzantium, Gallienus, as if he had done something great, flew to Rome by a rapid course, and, the fathers having been summoned, celebrated his decennalia with a new kind of games, a new appearance of processions, and an

exquisite kind of pleasures. First of all, between the togaed fathers and the equestrian order, with the soldiery in white and all the people going before, with the slaves too of almost all and the women going before with wax torches and lamps, he made for the Capitol. There went before too, on either side, a hundred white oxen, their horns yoked with gold and gleaming with multicolored silk saddle-cloths; two hundred shining white lambs went before on either side, and the ten elephants which were then at Rome, twelve hundred gladiators adorned in processional splendor with the gilded garments of matrons, two hundred tamed beasts of various kinds got up with the greatest possible adornment, carriages with mimes and every kind of stage-player, boxers fighting with whips and not in earnest. All the jesters too played the Cyclops-game, so that they displayed certain marvelous and astonishing things. All the streets resounded with games and uproar and applause. He himself, in the midst, in an embroidered toga and a palm-decorated tunic, among the fathers, as we have said, with all the priests in their bordered togas, made for the Capitol. Five hundred gilded spears went on either side, a hundred banners besides those which belonged to the guilds; the dragons and standards of the temples and of all the legions went too; there went, besides, feigned nations, such as Goths, Sarmatians, Franks, Persians, so that no fewer than two hundred were led in each group.

By this procession the foolish man believed that he was deluding the Roman people; but, such are the witticisms of the Romans, one favored Postumus, another Regalianus, another Aureolus or Aemilianus, another Saturninus—for he too was already said to be reigning. Among these things there was an enormous complaint about his father, whom the son had left unavenged, and whom foreigners had somehow avenged. Yet Gallienus was not moved to such things, his heart being stupefied by pleasures; but he kept asking of those who were around him: "What have we for lunch? What pleasures are prepared? And what sort will the stage be tomorrow, and what sort the circus games?" Thus, the journey being completed and the hecatombs celebrated, he returned to the royal house, and, banquets and feasts being run through, he assigned other days to public pleasures. There is not to be passed over a not ignoble kind of witticism. For when a band of Persians, as if of captives, was being led through the procession (a ridiculous thing), certain jesters mingled themselves with the Persians, most diligently scrutinizing everything and searching out the face of each man with marvelous gaping. When it was asked of them what they were doing with such care, they replied: "We are seeking the father of the prince." When this had reached Gallienus, he was moved by no shame, no grief, no piety, and ordered the jesters to be burned alive. The people bore this deed more sorrowfully than anyone might suppose, and the soldiers indeed so grieved that not long after they paid him back in kind.

In the consulship of Gallienus and Saturninus, Odenathus, king of the Palmyrenes, obtained the empire of the whole East, chiefly for this reason, that by his brave deeds he declared himself worthy of so great a majesty to the faithless—Gallienus conducting either no affairs, or luxurious or foolish and ridiculous ones. In the end he at once declared war on the Persians, in vengeance for Valerian, which the son neglected. He at once occupies Nisibis and Carrhae, the people of Nisibis and of Carrhae surrendering themselves and reviling Gallienus. Nor yet was the reverence of Odenathus toward Gallienus lacking; for he sent to him the captured satraps, almost for the sake of insulting him and showing off himself; and when they had been brought to Rome, Gallienus, while Odenathus conquered, triumphed, with no mention made of his father—whom he did not even number among the gods except when compelled, when he had heard he was dead, but while he still lived; for he had falsely learned of his death. Odenathus, moreover, besieged the multitude of the Parthians at Ctesiphon, and, all the surrounding places having been laid waste, killed countless men. But when all the satraps from all the regions had flown together there for the sake of the common defense, there were long and various battles, yet the Roman victory was the more lasting; and although Odenathus did nothing else but strive that he might free Valerian, and pressed on daily, yet that most excellent emperor labored against the difficulties of the places on foreign soil.

While these things were being done among the Persians, the Scythians broke into Cappadocia. There, cities having been captured, and a varied war having been waged for a long time, they betook themselves to Bithynia. Wherefore the soldiers again deliberated about making a new emperor. All of whom Gallienus, in his manner, when he could not appease them and bring them back to his own favor, killed. When, however, the soldiers were seeking a worthy prince for themselves, Gallienus was archon at Athens—that is, the highest magistrate—through that vanity by which he both desired to be enrolled as a citizen and to take part in all the sacred rites, which neither Hadrian in his highest prosperity nor Antoninus in his ripe peace had done, although they were so learned in Greek letters that they rarely yielded to any of the most learned, by the judgment of great men. He desired, besides, to be thrust into the number of the Areopagites, the commonwealth being almost despised. For Gallienus was, what cannot be denied, distinguished in oratory, in poetry, and in all the arts. His is that wedding-song which was the foremost among a hundred poets. For when he was joining in marriage the sons of his brothers, and all the poets, Greek and Latin, had recited wedding-songs—and that for very many days—he, holding the hands of the betrothed, as some say, is reported to have said, more than once, thus: "Go, come, O children, sweat together equally with all your marrow between you; let not the doves outdo your murmurs, nor the ivy your arms, nor the shells your kisses." It is long to weave together his verses and orations, by which in his own time he shone forth both among poets and among orators; but one thing is sought in an emperor, another is demanded in an orator or a poet.

His best deed is praised, indeed; for in the consulship of his brother Valerian and his kinsman Lucillus, when he learned that the Persians had been laid waste by Odenathus, that Nisibis and Carrhae had been brought back into Roman power, that all Mesopotamia was ours, and finally that Ctesiphon had been reached, that the king had fled, that the satraps had been captured, that very many of the Persians had been killed, he shared the empire and called Odenathus Augustus, and ordered his coinage to be struck, on which he should draw the captive Persians—which both the senate and the city and every age received gladly. He was, besides, most ingenious; of which keenness, to show it, it is pleasing to set down a few things. For when he had sent an enormous bull into the arena, and a beast-hunter had come out to strike it, and could not kill it though it was brought out ten times, he sent the hunter a crown; and when all murmured at what the matter was that a most inept man should be crowned, he ordered it to be proclaimed through the herald: "To miss a bull so many times is difficult." The same man, when a certain dealer had sold glass jewels for true ones to his wife, and she, the matter being revealed, wished it to be avenged, ordered the seller to be snatched away as if to a lion, and then a capon to be released from the cage; and, all marveling at a thing so ridiculous, he ordered it to be proclaimed through the herald: "He practiced deceit, and he suffered it"; then he dismissed the merchant. Yet, Odenathus being occupied with the Persian war, and Gallienus, as was his custom, brooding over most inept affairs, the Scythians, ships having been built, reached Heraclea, and from there returned with booty into their own land, although many perished by shipwreck or were overcome in a naval battle.

About the same time Odenathus was killed by the treachery of his cousin, together with his son Herodes, whom too he had named emperor. Then Zenobia, his wife, because his surviving sons, Herennianus and Timolaus, were little boys, herself took up the empire and ruled for a long time, not in a womanly way nor after the manner of a female, but not only more bravely and skillfully than Gallienus—than whom any girl could have ruled better—but also more bravely and skillfully than many emperors. Gallienus, indeed, when it was announced to him that Odenathus had been killed, prepared war against the Persians, in too-late vengeance for his father, and, soldiers having been collected through the commander Heraclianus, conducted the affair of a skillful prince; yet that Heraclianus, when he had set out against the Persians, was conquered by the Palmyrenes and lost all the soldiers he had prepared, Zenobia ruling the Palmyrenes and most of the easterners in a manly fashion. Meanwhile the Scythians, sailing through the Euxine and entering the Hister, did many grievous things on Roman soil; on learning of which Gallienus put Cleodamus and Athenaeus, Byzantines, in charge of restoring and fortifying the cities, and there was fighting around the Pontus, and the barbarians were conquered by the Byzantine commanders. Under the commander Venerianus too the Goths were overcome in a naval battle, although Venerianus himself perished by a soldier's death; and from there they laid waste Cyzicus and Asia, and next all Achaea, and were conquered by the Athenians under the commander Dexippus, the writer of these times. Whence, driven off, they roamed through Epirus, Macedonia, and Boeotia. Gallienus meanwhile, scarcely roused by the public evils, met the Goths as they wandered through Illyricum, and by chance killed very many. On learning of which the Scythians, a wagon-fort having been made, attempted to flee over Mount Gessax. All the Scythians from there Marcianus, with varying fortune of wars . . . which roused all the Scythians to rebellion.

And this indeed was the devotion of the commander Heraclianus toward the commonwealth. But when they could not bear the great wickedness of Gallienus, Marcianus and Heraclianus entered into a plan, that one of them should take the empire . . . And Claudius indeed, as we shall say in his proper place, the best of all men, was chosen, who had not been present at the plan, and was held in such reverence by all that he seemed justly worthy of the empire, as was afterward proved. For this Claudius—from whom Constantius, our most vigilant Caesar, draws his origin—had as their associate in seeking the empire a certain Ceronius, or Cecropius, commander of the Dalmatians, who aided them both most courteously and most prudently. But since they could not take the empire while Gallienus lived, they resolved that he must be assailed by treachery of this kind, that they might remove a most wicked stain from the helm of the human race, while the commonwealth was worn out with evils, lest the commonwealth, given over any longer to the theatre and the circus, should perish through the enticements of pleasures. The kind of treachery was this: Gallienus was at variance with Aureolus, who had invaded the principate, expecting daily the grievous and intolerable arrival of the makeshift emperor. Knowing this, Marcianus and Cecropius had suddenly ordered it to be announced to Gallienus that Aureolus was now coming. He, therefore, the soldiers being considered ready, advanced to battle as if it were certain, and so, assassins having been sent, was killed. And indeed Gallienus is said to have been struck by the weapon of Cecropius, commander of the Dalmatians, as some report, near Milan, where immediately his brother Valerian too was killed—whom many say to have been Augustus, many Caesar, many neither, which is not probable, since we find written in the calendars, when Valerian had already been captured: "Valerian the emperor being consul." Who, then, could this other Valerian have been but the brother of Gallienus? It is agreed about his family, yet it is not sufficiently agreed about his rank, or, as others have begun to say, about his majesty.

Gallienus having been killed, there was an enormous mutiny of the soldiers, since, in the hope of booty and of public devastation, they said that an emperor useful, necessary, brave, and effective for stirring up envy had been snatched from them. Wherefore it was the counsel of the chief men that the soldiers should be appeased by that kind of thing by which they are wont to be appeased; and so, twenty gold pieces having been promised through Marcianus and received (for there was an abundance of treasure at hand), they entered Gallienus the tyrant in the public calendars by a military verdict. The soldiers thus being calmed, Claudius—a holy man and rightly venerable and dear to all good men, a friend of his country, a friend of the laws, acceptable to the senate, and well known to the people—received the empire.

This was the Life of Gallienus, briefly conveyed by me into writing—a man who, born for his belly and his pleasures, ruined his days and nights with wine and debaucheries, and caused the whole world to be laid waste by nearly twenty pretenders, so that even women ruled better than he. And, lest his pitiable ingenuity be passed over: in springtime he made bedchambers of roses, composed little castles of fruit, kept grapes for three years, exhibited melons in the depth of winter, taught how new wine might be kept the whole year through, always provided green figs and fruit fresh from the trees in months not their own, and always covered his tables with golden cloths. He made double vessels, and those too of gold; he sprinkled gold-dust on his hair. He often came forth radiate-crowned, and was seen at Rome in a purple cloak with jeweled clasps and golden ones, where the princes were always seen togaed; he had a purple and gold tunic for a man, and that too with sleeves; he used a jeweled belt. He attached jeweled straps, calling his boots "little nets." He banqueted in public. He softened the people with largesses. To the senate he distributed a dole sitting down. He invited matrons to his council, and to those who kissed his hand he gave four gold pieces of his own name.

When he learned about his father Valerian that he had been captured, that which the best of philosophers is reported to have said about his lost son—"I knew that I had begotten a mortal"—he said thus: "I knew that my father was mortal." Nor was there lacking an Annius Cornicula, who would falsely praise him in his own voice as a steadfast prince; yet worse was the man who believed it. He often came forth to the flute-player, and withdrew to the organ, since he ordered music to be played at his coming forth and his withdrawal. He bathed at daybreak seven times in summer, or six; in winter twice, or three times. He always drank from golden cups, scorning glass, so that he said nothing was more common. He always varied his wines, and never at one banquet drank two cups from one wine. Concubines often reclined in his dining-rooms. He almost always had a second course of jesters and mimes. When he went to the gardens of his own name, all the Palatine offices followed; the prefects too and the masters of all the offices went, and were admitted to the banquets and the swimmings, and bathed together with the prince. Women too were often admitted, beautiful girls with him, ugly old women with them; and he said that he was making merry, when he had lost the whole world on every side.

He was, however, of excessive cruelty toward the soldiers; for he killed three thousand and four thousand soldiers on single days. He ordered a statue of himself larger than the Colossus to be made, in the guise of the Sun; but it perished unfinished. It had begun, in the end, to be made so large that it would seem twice the Colossus. He had wished it, moreover, to be placed on the highest part of the Esquiline Hill, so that it should hold a spear, up the shaft of which a child might climb to the top. But to Claudius and afterward to Aurelian the thing seemed foolish, since he had even ordered horses and a chariot to be made in proportion to the statue, and to be placed on a most lofty base. He had himself prepared, too, to extend the Flaminian portico as far as the Mulvian Bridge, so that it should be four-rowed, or, as others say, five-rowed, in such a way that the first row should have piers and, before it, columns with statues, and the second and third and so on, columns four apart. It is long to put all his doings into writing; whoever wishes to know them, let him read Palfurius Sura, who composed the daily journals of his life. Let us return to Saloninus.

Saloninus Gallienus. This was the son of Gallienus, the grandson of Valerian, about whom indeed there is almost nothing worthy to be put into writing, except that he was nobly born, royally brought up, and then killed, not for his own cause but for his father's. About his name there is great ambiguity. For many have recorded him in history as Gallienus, many as Saloninus. And those who say Saloninus, report that he was surnamed thus because he was born at Salonae; but those who say Gallienus, that he was surnamed by the name of his father and of his grandfather Gallienus, once a most eminent man in the commonwealth. There was, in fine, until recently a statue at the foot of the Romulean Hill—that is, before the Sacred Way, between the Temple of Faustina and the Temple of Vesta, at the Arch of Fabius—which had inscribed "To Gallienus the Younger," with "Saloninus" added, from which his name may be understood. That a decade of Gallienus's reign had passed is clear enough. This I have added for the reason that many have said that he perished in the ninth year of his reign. That there were also other rebellions under him we shall say in their own proper place, since it has pleased me to include twenty pretenders in one volume, for the reason both that not much can be said about them, and that most things have already been said in the Life of Gallienus. And these things indeed about Gallienus it will suffice to have said for now in this book. For many things have already been said in the Life of Valerian, and others we shall now speak of in the book which is to be inscribed "Concerning the Thirty Pretenders"—things which it seemed less useful to repeat and to say more than once. To this is added that I have even deliberately passed over certain things, lest his descendants be injured by the publication of many

matters. For you yourself know what a great war such men wage with those who have written anything about their ancestors; nor do I think those things unknown which Marcus Tullius said in the Hortensius, which he wrote after the example of the Protrepticus. One thing, however, I will set down, which had a certain pleasantness, though a common one, and yet established a new custom. For when most of the soldiers who had come to the banquet were laying aside their belts at the hour of the feast, the boy Saloninus, or Gallienus, is reported to have snatched away their gilded and embossed sword-belts; and, since it was difficult in the Palace court to inquire for what had been lost, and the men had silently borne the losses from among the soldiers, afterward, being invited to the banquet, they reclined girt; and when it was asked of them why they did not loosen their belts, they are said to have replied: "We defer to Saloninus." And from this the custom was derived, that thereafter they should recline girt with the emperor. I cannot deny that to most the origin of this custom seems to be from elsewhere; they say that the military lunch, which is called parandium, from the fact that it prepares the soldiers for war, was begun by men girt; for which thing it is an argument that even with the emperor one dines ungirt. These things I have set down because they seemed worthy both of record and of knowledge.

Now let us pass to the twenty pretenders, who arose in the times of Gallienus through contempt of the bad prince. About whom briefly and few things are to be said. For most of them are not worthy that a volume of such men should be occupied even with their names, although some seem to have had no little virtue in themselves, and even to have profited the commonwealth much. The opinions about the name of Saloninus are likewise so various that one who thinks he speaks more truly says that he was named after his mother Salonina, whom Gallienus loved to distraction—and he loved also a barbarian woman, a king's daughter, named Pipara. Wherefore Gallienus always dresses his hair golden, together with his household. About the years of Gallienus and Valerian pertaining to the empire, such uncertain things are handed down that, although it is agreed that the same men reigned fifteen years—that is, Gallienus reached the fifteenth year, but Valerian was captured in the sixth—others put it into writing that Gallienus reigned nine years, scarcely ten; although it is agreed both that the decennalia were celebrated at Rome by him, and that after the decennalia the Goths were conquered by him, that peace was made with Odenathus, that concord was entered into with Aureolus, that there was fighting against Postumus, against Lollianus, and that many things were done by him which pertained to virtue, yet more which pertained to disgrace; for he is said both always to have frequented the taverns by night and to have lived with panders, mimes, and jesters.