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As a supplement to the reign of Marcus Aurelius, we ought to notice the
rise of one great rebel, the sole civil disturber of his time, in Syria.
This was Avidius Cassius, whose descent from Cassius (the noted
conspirator against the great Dictator, Julius) seems to have suggested to
him a wandering idea, and at length a formal purpose of restoring the
ancient republic. Avidius was the commander-in-chief of the Oriental army,
whose head-quarters were then fixed at Antioch. His native disposition,
which inclined him to cruelty, and his political views, made him, from his
first entrance upon office, a severe disciplinarian. The well known
enormities of the neighboring Daphne gave him ample opportunities for the
exercise of his harsh propensities in reforming the dissolute soldiery. He
amputated heads, arms, feet, and hams: he turned out his mutilated
victims, as walking spectacles of warning; he burned them; he smoked them
to death; and, in one instance, he crucified a detachment of his army,
together with their centurions, for having, unauthorized, gained a
splendid victory, and captured a large booty on the Danube.
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