`` Oh , Amal is a young fool ; but , speaking as sensible men , your Emperor is doing such great things in Gaul that the Winged Hats are anxious to be his friends , or , better still , the friends of his servants . They think you and Pertinax could lead them to victories . '' Allo looked at me like a one-eyed raven . ' `` Allo , '' I said , `` you are the corn between the two millstones . Be content if they grind evenly , and do n't thrust your hand between them . '' ' `` I ? '' said Allo . `` I hate Rome and the Winged Hats equally ; but if the Winged Hats thought that some day you and Pertinax might join them against Maximus , they would leave you in peace while you considered . Time is what we need -- you and I and Maximus . Let me carry a pleasant message back to the Winged Hats -- something for them to make a council over . We barbarians are all alike . We sit up half the night to discuss anything a Roman says . Eh ? '' ' `` We have no men . We must fight with words , '' said Pertinax . `` Leave it to Allo and me . '' ` So Allo carried word back to the Winged Hats that we would not fight them if they did not fight us ; and they -LRB- I think they were a little tired of losing men in the sea -RRB- agreed to a sort of truce . I believe Allo , who being a horse-dealer loved lies , also told them we might some day rise against Maximus as Maximus had risen against Rome . ` Indeed , they permitted the corn-ships which I sent to the Picts to pass North that season without harm . Therefore the Picts were well fed that winter , and since they were in some sort my children , I was glad of it .
We had only two thousand men on the Wall , and I wrote many times to XXXXX and begged -- prayed -- him to send me only one cohort of my old North British troops .
Allo Amal Gaul Maximus Roman Rome corn-ships day horse-dealer night