his strength was so great that he was able to draw a carriage which two oxen could not move.  He could strike out the teeth of a horse with a blow of his fist, and break its thigh with a kick. 8.  His diet was as extraordinary as his endowments:  he generally ate forty pounds weight of flesh every day, and drank six gallons of wine, without committing any debauch in either. 9.  With a frame so athletic, he was possessed of a mind undaunted in danger, neither fearing nor regarding any man. 10.  The first time he was made known to the emperor Seve’rus, was while he was celebrating games on the birth day of his son Ge’ta.  He overcame sixteen in running, one after the other; he then kept up with the emperor on horseback, and having fatigued him in the course, he was opposed to seven of the most active soldiers, and overcame them with the greatest ease. 11.  These extraordinary exploits caused him to be particularly noticed; he had been taken into the emperor’s body guard, and by the usual gradation of preferment came to be chief commander.  In this situation he had been equally remarkable for his simplicity, discipline, and virtue; but, upon coming to the empire, he was found to be one of the greatest monsters of cruelty that had ever disgraced power; fearful of nothing himself, he seemed to sport with the terrors of all mankind.

12.  However, his cruelties did not retard his military operations, which were carried on with a spirit becoming a better monarch.  He overthrew the Germans in several battles, wasted all their country with fire and sword for four hundred miles together, and formed a resolution of subduing all the northern nations, as far as the ocean. 13.  In these expeditions, in order to attach the soldiers more firmly to him, he increased their pay; and in every duty of the camp he himself took as much pains as the meanest sentinel in his army, showing incredible courage and assiduity.  In every engagement, where the conflict was hottest, Max’imin was seen fighting in person, and destroying all before him; for, being bred a barbarian, he considered it his duty to combat as a common soldier, while he commanded as a general.

14.  In the mean time his cruelties had so alienated the minds of his subjects, that secret conspiracies were secretly aimed against him.  None of them, however, succeeded, till at last his own soldiers, long harassed by famine and fatigue, and hearing of revolts on every side, resolved to terminate their calamities by the tyrant’s death. 15.  His great strength, and his being always armed, at first deterred them from assassinating him; but at length the soldiers, having made his guards accomplices in their designs, set upon him while he slept at noon in his tent, and without opposition slew both him and his son, whom he had made his partner in the empire. 16.  Thus died this most remarkable man, after an usurpation of about three years, in the sixty-fifth year of his age.  His assiduity when in a humble station, and his cruelty when in power, serve to evince, that there are some men whose virtues are fitted for obscurity, as there are others who only show themselves great when placed in an exalted station.