The totality of my mental impressions of what I heard from these two and
other members of this incredible deputation of insurgent mutineers and of
what I saw of the doings of the whole deputation, was vague and confused.
From the confusion emerged a predominating sense of their many
inconsistencies and of the haphazard irresponsibility and inconsequence of
their states of mind and actions. They were, indeed, entirely consistent
in one respect. Unlike Maternus and his men, not one of them blamed
Commodus for anything, not even for having appointed Perennis to his high
office and then having permitted him to arrogate to himself all the
functions of the government of the Republic and Empire. One and all they
excused the Emperor and expressed for him enthusiastic loyalty: one and
all they blamed not only the Prefect's mismanagement but also his own
appointment on Perennis. Consistent as they were in holding these opinions
or in having such feelings, the notions were inconsistent in themselves.
So likewise was their often expressed and manifestly sincere intention to
forestall the consummation of the alleged conspiracy and save the Emperor
inconsistent with their slow progress from Britain towards Rome. Never
having been in Britain and knowing little of it from such reports as I had
heard, I could not controvert their assertion that the state of the roads
and weather there had made impossible greater speed than they had achieved
from their quarters to their port, yet I suspected that men really
systematically in earnest might have accomplished in twenty days marches
which had occupied them for fifty-one days.
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