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When he was crossing Palestine on his way to Egypt, constantly moved with disgust at the unsavoury and turbulent Jews, he is said to have cried out, O Marcomanni, O Quadi, O Sarmatians, at length have I found others more useless than you.

When Marcus was making preparations for the war against Cassius he would not accept any aid from barbarians, though many offered him their services, saying that the barbarians must not know the troubles that were being stirred up between Romans.

When the head of Cassius was brought to him, Antoninus shewed no exultation or pride, but even lamented that he had been robbed of an opportunity for compassion, for he had wished to take him alive, he said, that he might reproach him with the benefits he had done him, and then spare his life. Lastly when one said that Antoninus was to blame for his clemency toward his enemy and his enemy's children and relations and all whom he had found to be accomplices in the usurpation, the man who had imputed the blame going on to say, "What if he had been successful?" Marcus is said to have answered, My worship of the Gods has not been such, my life is not such, that he could be successful. He then, enumerating all the Emperors who had been killed, pointed out that they had deserved their fate, and that no good Emperor had easily been overcome by a usurper or slain, adding that Nero had 371