179 AD Disturbances from Scotland
At the end of the smallpox plague which lasted 15 years, it appears that tribes from Scotland once again crossed Hadrian’s wall and invaded England. Ulpius Marcellus was appointed Governor by the emperor Commodus to deal with the trouble.
Cassius Dio the Roman Historian writes in the Epitome of Book LXXIII, Roman History.
“the greatest struggle was the one with the Britons. When the tribes in that island, crossing the wall that separated them from the Roman legions, proceeded to do much mischief and cut down a general together with his troops, Commodus became alarmed but sent Ulpius Marcellus against them. This man, who was temperate and frugal and always lived like a soldier in the matter of his food as well as in everything else when he was at war, was becoming haughty and arrogant; he was most conspicuously incorruptible, and yet was not of a pleasant or kindly nature.
He showed himself more wakeful than any other general, and as he wished the others who were associated with him to be alert also, he used to write orders on twelve tablets, such as are made out of linden wood, almost every evening, and bid an aide to deliver them to such-and‑such persons at various hours, so that these officers, believing the general the always awake, might not themselves take their fill of sleep. For nature in the first place had made him able to resist sleep, and he had developed this faculty by the discipline of fasting. For in general he would never eat to satiety, and in order that he might not take his fill even of bread, he used to send to Rome for it. This was not because he could not eat the bread of the country, but in order that his bread might be so stale that he should be unable to eat even a small portion more than was absolutely necessary; for his gums were tender and, if the bread was very dry, would soon begin to bleed. However, he purposely exaggerated his natural tendency by simulating, in order that he might have the greatest possible reputation for p89 wakefulness. Such a man was Marcellus; and he ruthlessly put down the barbarians of Britain, and later, when, thanks to his peculiar excellence, he was all but on the point of being put to death by Commodus, he was nevertheless pardoned.”
