with a painful struggle into the condition of a subject, and soon withdrew herself by a voluntary death, from the anxious and humiliating dependence.* Julia Mæsa, her sister, was ordered to leave the court and Antioch. She retired to Emesa with an immense fortune, the fruit of twenty years' favour, accompanied by her two daughters, Soæmias and Mamæa, each of whom was a widow, and each had an only son.† Bassianus,t for that was the name of the son of Soæmias, was consecrated to the honourable ministry of high-priest of the sun; and this holy vocation, embraced either from prudence or superstition, contributed to raise the Syrian youth to the empire of Rome. A numerous body of troops was stationed at Emesa; and, as the severe discipline of Macrinus had constrained them to pass the winter encamped, they were eager to revenge the cruelty of such unaccustomed hardships. The soldiers, who re

*Dion, 1. 78, p. 1330. The abridgment of Xiphilin, though less particular, is in this place clearer than the original. [This princess, as soon as she heard of Caracalla's fate, entertained the idea of starving herself to death. She was reconciled to life by the respect with which Macrinus treated her, by whom she was permitted to retain her court and establishment. But if we may draw any safe conclusions from the curtailed text of Dion and Xiphilin's imperfect abridgment, she conceived new ambitious projects, and aspired to empire. She wished to follow in the steps of Semiramis and Nitocris, whose ancient country bordered on her own. Macrinus ordered her immediately to quit Antioch, and retire wherever she would. Recurring to her original design, she died of hunger.-GUIZOT.] [Gibbon, here and in a subsequent note, terms Macrinus a usurper. Still he had risen to the throne in the same manner as many of his predecessors; he had been acknowledged by the senate and the provinces, and was enumerated by ancient writers among the legitimate emperors. In its short duration and violent end, his reign only resembled many others. Granting that Elagabalus reckoned the years of his rule from the time of Caracalla's death, it would only prove his pride and hatred, not the usurpation of Macrinus.-WENCK.] + Mæsa had married Julius Avitus, of consular rank, who was appointed, by Caracalla, governor of Mesopotamia, and afterwards of Cyprus. Of their two daughters, Soæmias (or more correctly, Soæmis) was the widow of Varius Marcellus, a Roman senator, native of Apamea; and Mamaa was the widow of Gessius Marsianus, also a Syrian of distinction, born at Arce.-WENCK. This name was given to him after his maternal great-grandfather, who had two daughters, Julia Domna, the wife of Septimius Severus, and Julia Mæsa, the grandmother of Elagabalus. Victor (in his Epitome) is perhaps the only historian who has given a clue to this genealogy, when he says of Caracalla, "Hic Bassianus ex avi materni nomine dictus." Caracalla, Elagabalus, and Alexander Severus, all in

sorted in crowds to the temple of the sun, beheld with veneration and delight the elegant dress and figure of the young pontiff; they recognised, or they thought that they recognised, the features of Caracalla, whose memory they now adored. The artful Mæsa saw and cherished their rising partiality, and readily sacrificing her daughter's repu tation to the fortune of her grandson, she insinuated that Bassianus was the natural son of their murdered sovereign. The sums distributed by her emissaries with a lavish hand, silenced every objection, and the profusion sufficiently proved the affinity, or at least the resemblance, of Bassianus with the great original. The young Antoninus (for he had assumed and polluted that respectable name) was declared emperor by the troops of Emesa, asserted his hereditary right, and called aloud on the armies to follow the standard of a young and liberal prince, who had taken up arms to revenge his father's death and the oppression of the military order.*

Whilst a conspiracy of women and eunuchs was concerted with prudence, and conducted with rapid vigour, Macrinus, who, by a decisive motion, might have crushed his infant enemy, floated between the opposite extremes of terror and security, which alike fixed him inactive at Antioch. A spirit of rebellion diffused itself through all the camps and garrisons of Syria; successive detachments murdered their officers,† and joined the party of the rebels; and the tardy restitution of military pay and privileges was imputed to the acknowledged weakness of Macrinus. At length he marched out of Antioch, to meet the increasing and zealous army of the young pretender. His own troops seemed to take the field with faintness and reluctance; but in the

succession, bore this name.-GUIZOT. * According to Lampridius (Hist. August. p. 135), Alexander Severus lived twenty-nine years, three months, and seven days. As he was killed March 19, 235, he was born December 12, 205, and was consequently at this time thirteen years old, as his elder cousin might be about seventeen. This computation suits much better the history of the young princes than that of Herodian (1. 5, p. 181), who represents him as three years younger; whilst by an opposite error of chronology, he lengthens the reign of Elagabalus two years beyond its real duration. For the particulars of the conspiracy, see Dion, 1. 78, p. 1339. Herodian, 1. 5, p. 184. + By a most dangerous proclamation of the pretended Antoninus, every soldier, who brought in his officer's head, became entitled to his private

heat of the battle, the prætorian guards, almost by an involuntary impulse, asserted the superiority of their valour and discipline. The rebel ranks were broken; when the mother and grandmother of the Syrian prince, who according to their eastern custom, had attended the army, threw themselves from their covered chariots, and, by exciting the compassion of the soldiers, endeavoured to animate their drooping courage. Antoninus himself, who, in the rest of his life never acted like a man, in this important crisis of his fate approved himself a hero, mounted his horse, and, at the head of his rallied troops, charged sword in hand among the thickest of the enemy; whilst the eunuch Gannys,t whose occupations had been confined to female cares and the soft luxury of Asia, displayed the talents of an able and experienced general. The battle still raged with doubtful violence, and Macrinus might have obtained the victory, had he not betrayed his own cause by a shameful and precipitate flight. His cowardice served only to protract his life a few days, and to stamp deserved ignominy on his misfortunes. It is scarcely necessary to add, that his son Diadumenianus was involved in the same fate. As soon as the stubborn prætorians could be convinced that they fought for a prince who had basely deserted them, they surrendered to the conqueror; the contending parties of the Roman army, mingling tears of joy and tenderness, united under the banners of the imagined son of Caracalla, and the east acknowledged with pleasure the first emperor of Asiatic extraction.

The letters of Macrinus had condescended to inform the senate of the slight disturbance occasioned by an impostor in Syria, and a decree immediately passed, declaring the rebel and his family public enemies; with a promise of pardon, however, to such of his deluded adherents as should merit it by an immediate return to their duty. During the twenty days that elapsed from the declaration to the victory of Antoninus (for in so short an interval was the fate of the Roman world decided), the capital and the provinces, estate, as well as to his military commission. * Dion, 1. 78, p. 1345, Herodian, 1. 5, p. 186. The battle was fought near the village of Immæ, about two-and-twenty miles from Antioch. Gannys was a debauchee, not an eunuch. Dion says, on the contrary (p. 1355) that Soæmis had admitted him to take her husband's place.-WENCK.

more especially those of the east, were distracted with hopes and fears, agitated with tumult, and stained with a useless effusion of civil blood, since whosoever of the rivals prevailed in Syria, must reign over the empire. The specious letters, in which the young conqueror announced his victory to the obedient senate, were filled with professions of virtue and moderation; the shining examples of Marcus and Augustus, he should ever consider as the great rule of his administration; and he affected to dwell with pride on the striking resemblance of his own age and fortunes with those of Augustus, who in the earliest youth had revenged by a successful war the murder of his father. By adopting the style of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, son of Antoninus, and grandson of Severus, he tacitly asserted his hereditary claim to the empire; but, by assuming the tribunitian and proconsular powers before they had been conferred on him by a decree of the senate, he offended the delicacy of Roman prejudice. This new and injudicious violation of the constitution was probably dictated either by the ignorance of his Syrian courtiers, or the fierce disdain of his military followers.*

As the attention of the new emperor was diverted by the most trifling amusements, he wasted many months in his luxurious progress from Syria to Italy, passed at Nicomedia his first winter after his victory, and deferred till the ensuing summer his triumphal entry into the capital. A faithful picture, however, which preceded his arrival, and was placed by his immediate order over the altar of Victory in the senate-house, conveyed to the Romans the just but unworthy resemblance of his person and manners. He was drawn in his sacerdotal robes of silk and gold, after the loose flowing fashion of the Medes and Phoenicians; his head was covered with a lofty tiara, his numerous collars and bracelets were adorned with gems of an inestimable value. His eyebrows were tinged with black, and his cheeks painted with an artificial red and white.t The grave senators confessed with a sigh, that, after having long experienced the stern tyranny of their own countrymen, Rome was at length humbled beneath the effeminate luxury of oriental despotism.

* Dion, 1. 79, p. 1353. + Dion, 1. 79, p. 1363. Herodian, 1. 5, p. 189.

The sun was worshipped at Emesa, under the name of Elagabalus,* and under the form of a black conical stone, which, as it was universally believed, had fallen from heaven on that sacred place. To this protecting deity, Antoninus, not without some reason, ascribed his elevation to the throne. The display of superstitious gratitude was the only serious business of his reign. The triumph of the god of Emesa over all religions of the earth, was the great object of his zeal and vanity; and the appellation of Elagabalus (for he presumed as pontiff and favourite to adopt that sacred name) was dearer to him than all the titles of imperial greatness. In a solemn procession through the streets of Rome, the way was strewed with gold-dust; the black stone, set in precious gems, was placed on a chariot drawn by six milk-white horses richly caparisoned. The pious emperor held the reins, and, supported by his ministers, moved slowly backwards, that he might perpetually enjoy the felicity of the divine presence. In a magnificent temple raised on the Palatine mount, the sacrifices of the god Elagabalus were celebrated with every circumstance of cost and solemnity. The richest wines, the most extraordinary victims, and the rarest aromatics, were profusely consumed on his altar. Around the altar a chorus of Syrian damsels performed their lascivious dances to the sound of barbarian music, whilst the gravest personages of the state and army, clothed in long Phoenician tunics, officiated in the meanest functions with affected zeal and secret indignation.†

*This name is derived by the learned from two Syriac words, ela, a god, and gabel, to form; the forming or plastic god,- -a proper, and even happy epithet for the sun. Wotton's History of Rome, p. 378. [The name of Elagabalus has been variously disfigured. Herodian makes it Ελαιαγαβαλος. Dion, Ελεγαβαλος, while Lampridius and more modern writers corrupt it into Heliogabalus. But its correct form is Elagabalus, as found on medals. (Eckhel, de Doct. Num. Vet. tom. vii. p. 252). Gibbon's etymology of it is adopted from Bochart. Chan. lib. ii. c. 5). Salmasius more reasonably (Not. ad Lamprid. in Elagab.) derives it from the form of the Syrian idol, represented by Herodian, and on medals, as that of a mountain (gibel in Hebrew), or a large conical stone, with marks imitating the rays of the sun. As none were allowed, at Hierapolis in Syria, to make statues of the sun and moon, because they were of themselves sufficiently visible, the sun was represented at Emesa, under the figure of an aërolite, which had fallen there. Spanheim, CESAR, (notes) p. 46.-GUIZOT. Herodian, 1. 5, p. 190.