⚫️ FRIENDSHIP “When Licinius Sura died, Trajan bestowed upon him a public funeral and a statue. This man had attained to such a degree of wealth and pride that he had built a gymnasium for the Romans; yet so great was the friendship and confidence which he showed toward Trajan and Trajan toward him, that, although he was often slandered, — as naturally happens in the case of all those who possess any influence with the emperors, — Trajan never felt any suspicion or hatred toward him. On the contrary, when those who envied Sura became very insistent, the emperor went uninvited to his house to dinner, and having dismissed his whole body-guard, he first called Sura's physician and caused him to anoint his eyes, and then his barber, whom he caused to shave his chin (for the emperors themselves as well as all the rest used to follow this ancient practice; it was Hadrian who first set the fashion of wearing a beard); and after doing all this, he next took a bath and had dinner. Then on the following day he said to his friends who were constantly in the habit of making disparaging remarks about Sura: "If Sura had desired to kill me, he would have killed me yesterday." Cassius Dio