CHAPTER VII

SUPPLEMENTARY MATTER CONCERNING THE YEARS 221-222

_Antonine’s Government from 221 to 222 A.D._

The events of the years 221 and until March 222 are mainly a record of internecine fights and struggles; the Emperor was trying to retain his position in the state, the women leaving no stone unturned to possess themselves of power in Alexander’s name. We have traced the events which led to the adoption of Alexander, and noticed the small amount of power which his position as heir to the Empire actually put into the hands of Maesa and Mamaea. We have seen further how the repudiation of the adoption by Antonine lessened even this modicum of power, and how the successful attempt to make Alexander Consul gained for their puppet the official position from which the terms of his adoption had excluded him. Once that position was secured, we have watched the successful plot against the Emperor’s life, which placed Maesa and Mamaea in actual command of the state under the merely nominal headship of Alexander. It only remains for us to follow the governmental acts of these last months of Antonine’s life, as far as the authorities will allow.

The first recorded action after the adoption of Alexander was one of religion. The ostensible object of the ceremony on 10th July, or rather earlier, had been to free the chief priest of Elagabal from his secular duties, in order that he might further the worship of the Great God. To this end, Antonine instituted a magnificent religious procession through the city, taking his God from the temple on the Palatine to that in the suburbs. Herodian, with his usual inaccuracy, announces that this ceremony took place each year at midsummer. Now, the temple on the Palatine was not finished by midsummer of the year 220, judging from the coins which celebrate the expansion of the cult, and that near the Porta Praenestina was even later in its completion. The inference is, therefore, that the procession could not possibly have taken place in the year 220 at midsummer. Further evidence is, however, forthcoming; Cohen mentions certain Roman coins struck in honour of the procession; they show the God on a car, and date from the latter part of the year 221, by which time the suburban temple was finished and the procession certainly took place.

Before midsummer in the year 222, according to Dion, Antonine was dead. He did not therefore conduct the Elagabal procession, and as the authors inform us that Alexander sent the God back to Emesa with considerable expedition, after reconsecrating the temple to Jupiter, it is very unlikely that Alexander continued the public parade of an unpopular worship, even though the God was still in Rome at the time mentioned.

Despite Herodian’s statement that Alexander, as well as Antonine, was a priest of the Sun, it is fairly certain that the former was never actually associated with his cousin in that priesthood, and was not in the least likely to begin the worship after Antonine’s death. The obvious inference is that, as usual, Herodian was speaking without his book; _each_ year meant that there was one procession, and one only, namely at midsummer in the year 221.

The correct interpretation of this function belongs to specialists in Semitic mythology. There are points about it, however, which incline one to the idea that its institution in Rome was due to the marriage of Elagabal and Juno Coelestis. Its real significance lies in the fact that it took place at midsummer. Ramsay tells us of many such processions in the East, notably those held during the month Tammuz, which (owing to the variations of the local Syrian calendars) fell in various places at different times between June and September. Now, these processions celebrated the nuptials of the divine pair Ishtar-Tammuz or Aphrodite-Adonis. The worship of this pair centred at Bylus, not 100 miles from Emesa, and from this shrine, in all probability, Antonine got his idea of the great procession, made memorable by the coins struck during the year 221, and also by the inscription to Hercules, erected either in the latter part of the year 221 or early in 222 (Domaszewski) by the Centurion Masculinus Valens, the standard-bearer Aurelius Fabianus, and the adjutant Valerius Ferminus, all of the Tenth Antonine Cohort of the Praetorian Guard. This inscription records their having taken part in the sacred procession, which seems to have been of a military as well as of a religious character. The magnificence was extraordinary. The chariot on which the God was transported was richly covered with gold and precious stones; great umbrellas were at each corner. It was drawn by six white horses (the coins give them all abreast), and the reins were so arranged as to make it appear that the God himself was driving, while the horses were actually guided by the Emperor, running backwards, and supported on either side by guards lest anything untoward should happen. Statues of the Gods, costly offerings, and the insignia of imperial power were carried, while the Equestrian order and the Praetorian Guards followed.

The streets were strewn thick with yellow sand, powdered with gold dust, and the whole route was lined by the populace, carrying torches and strewing flowers in the path of God. Precisely the same thing may be seen to-day following the same route and at the same time of the year. The procession of the Corpus Domini is still a popular function even in modern Rome, though its termination is no longer the occasion for temporal blessings such as Antonine’s liberality provided. Herodian mentions this liberality, and condemns it as a sort of diabolical plot for the extermination of the citizens. He says that when the festival was over, Antonine used to mount on towers especially constructed for the purpose, and distribute to the crowd vases of gold and silver, clothes and stuffs of all sorts, fat oxen and other animals, clean and unclean, except pigs, which were forbidden to him by his Phoenician (not Jewish) custom. Presumably the distribution was by tickets, exchangeable for these gifts, of which he says each was at liberty to take what he could seize. In the scramble, many citizens perished either by crushing one another, or by throwing themselves, in their eagerness, on the lances of the soldiers. The consequence was that the festival became a misfortune to many families. But surely to make Antonine responsible for the greediness of the crowd is as absurd as to record the fiction that he smothered people with flowers, or took luncheon in the circus when he was interested in the games, and then evince such harmless amusements as proofs of cruelty.

As we recorded in the last chapter, it was certainly not long before Antonine discovered that he had made a vital mistake in adopting his cousin. We are led to infer that the boys had not seen much of one another for some time previously, as Mamaea had kept them apart, fearing her son’s contamination. Now that Alexander was actually in the palace and in daily contact with the Emperor, incompatibility of temper was the natural result, though in several places we are informed that Antonine loved his cousin at least up to 1st January, which interesting fact may be doubted on psychological as well as on the historical grounds already recorded. His second mistake had been in marrying his grandmother’s elderly friend Annia Faustina.

By the autumn of 221 the Emperor had resolved (as we have already pointed out) to rid himself of both encumbrances at once. For Antonine, divorces, like marriages, were made in heaven, an opinion which he had no desire to hide from men. He therefore divorced Annia Faustina without intending to live a single life, even for a time, because he had grown weary, was tired of this struggle with his relations. Moreover, he wanted friends; the _coup d’état_ by which he had freed himself from the irksomeness of Alexander’s sonship, or had at least tried to do so, and by which he had at the same time got rid of his third wife, had naturally caused a break with his family; after which the Emperor seems to have considered himself at perfect liberty to make any appointments he chose, and to mismanage the state much as a Claudius or a Macrinus might have done. It was a period, according to Lampridius, when Antonine was specially drawn to members of the theatrical profession. Now such persons are admirable in their proper place, but are not much sought after in governmental positions. Unfortunately, the Emperor did not know this fact, and, considering himself emancipated, did as Nero, Titus, Domitian, or Caracalla would have done: he appointed his friends everywhere. The biographers, of course, assume that the men appointed were of loose character, as well as of base origin, without supplying a tittle of evidence either as to who the men were or what they did when in responsible positions. The supposition is that they were appointed on account of abnormalities; the result, as chronicled, is that the state did not suffer from their mismanagement.

We can quite see the point of view of a boy feverishly anxious to regain the power and authority which he had lost, and imagining that the one way to do this was to put his own friends into office, whether they were barbers, runners, cooks, or locksmiths. Lampridius tells us that men from each of these trades were appointed as procurators of the 20th, though how many such appointments Antonine made it is impossible to discover. In the autumn of this year (221) the soldiers asked for the dismissal of four such favourites, of whom the Chariot-Driver Gordius, Praefect of the Night Watch, was one; Claudius Censor, Praefect of the Sustenances, another. In the same passage Lampridius reiterates the old lie about Eutychianus Comazon, who had been reappointed Praefect of the Praetorian Guard about January 222. He again calls Eutychianus an actor, who changed his offices as quickly as he would have changed his parts on the stage, and records that it was the height of folly to put him in command of the guards. In all probability it was annoying to Mamaea, as she might not be able to bribe the guards as freely as heretofore. Now, we have already seen that Eutychianus Comazon was a soldier as far back as the year 182; that he had held this same office (Praefect of the Praetorium) in 218; that he had been Praefect of the City in 219, Consul in 220; again Praefect of the City in 221, and that, when in the murders and proscriptions which followed that of Antonine, the then Praefect of Rome Fulvius Diogenianus had met his end, Comazon was reappointed to the city praefecture for the third time, and now by Maesa and Mamaea. It is, therefore, pure stupidity to condemn Antonine for appointing this actor (!) to a post in 222 which he had already held with honour, and which he was to hold again with renown. If none of Antonine’s appointments were worse than this of Eutychianus Comazon, it is small wonder that the state suffered in no wise from the mismanagement. A further charge brought against the administration is, that the Emperor appointed freedmen to the posts of Governors of Provinces, Ambassadors, Proconsuls, and military leaders, thus debasing all these offices by conferring them upon the ignoble and dissolute.

Here is another wilful bit of misrepresentation. A short perusal of Petronius on the position of freedmen will disabuse any one’s mind of the idea that they were either ignoble or essentially dissolute. Patricians they were not, though they aped the manners and extravagances of that class, much as the plutocracy of to-day ape the aristocracy of yesterday, both in their wealth and their exclusiveness. Money in Old Rome carried much the same kudos as it carries in England to-day. The democracy could and did rise when they had acquired wealth; they were then just as vulgar, just as ostentatious, just as snobbish as their successors the plutocrats of this latter-day world; they had the privileges that wealth confers and none of the responsibilities which aristocracy involves, and were, equally with the modern plutocrats, without traditions or heredity to guide them. But this was their misfortune, not their fault. On the other hand, there was, as a general rule, plenty of ability amongst the men who had risen. They were clear-headed, far-sighted politicians; men who, being free from traditions, were best able to cut away the overgrowth of centuries, because their respect for archaeological institutions had not degenerated them into mere fossilized curiosities of an antediluvian age. Certainly they were not all ignoble, if they were plebeian in origin, and it is mere supposition to say that they were all dissolute; so indecent a suggestion could only emanate from those who hoped to gain in comparison.

There was one obvious reason why Maesa and her party should object to any and every appointment made by Antonine. Men thus appointed would not be her nominees, and she could not therefore demand the fees payable on such occasions. This mention of fees brings one to the second part of the charge against the Emperor, namely, that he sold offices either himself or through his favourites. It would certainly be more satisfactory if we knew something as to what he sold, to whom he sold it, or for how much he sold it. Lampridius is careful not to mention such trivial and minor details, he just brings the accusation, without either proof or real likelihood to support it. The main contention seems to be that the practice is immoral; if so, immorality is as rife to-day as in third-century Rome. Sovereigns, ministers, cabinets, universities, churches, in fact every species of authority confers its own offices, decorations, titles, and sinecures, for all of which fees are still chargeable, even exacted. This practice of royalties may account for the charge, as it is unlikely, psychologically speaking, that Antonine would ever have sought to profit pecuniarily from his friends, and certainly he would not have appointed enemies, even for money’s sake; he had learnt too much about the ways of such people in the bosom of his own family. We have remarked in other places on Antonine’s penchant for giving, and can well believe that the boy bestowed favours broadcast; that he sought to fill offices as they fell vacant, by the appointment of friends, especially with men who had endeared themselves to him, men from whom he expected loyalty in return for his devotion and generosity. Poor child, he had yet to learn that sycophants are ever to be bought by the highest bidder. Lampridius relates the trouble and increase of difficulty which, by their disloyalty, venality, and unbridled gossip, these men brought upon their benefactor in return for his trust. Fortunately for all parties concerned, they met their deaths (doubtless unwilling victims) along with the master whom they had betrayed. They thought they had secured themselves, but found they would have done better to secure him, which is not an unusual position with traitors.

Amongst the number of appointments made for his own pleasure during this period we must include the return of Aquilia Severa to the position of wife and Empress. Dion relates that, between the divorce of Annia Faustina and the return of the nun to connubial felicity, Antonine took two women to wife; but adds sapiently that even he does not know who they were, or when the marriages took place. Now, as the time between the divorce of Annia and the Emperor’s death cannot greatly have exceeded three months, and as he was obviously desirous of returning to Aquilia Severa from the first, the story of the two odd wives may be dismissed as not proven, another of those terminological inexactitudes which seem to be inseparable from the political amenities of every age; added to which we must remember that Antonine was still so passionately devoted to Hierocles that he would willingly have died rather than be parted from him.

The return of the nun was the crowning point in Antonine’s folly. Undoubtedly he was getting more and more worried, was feverishly anxious to repair the damage to his shattered power, was ready to catch at any straw that would give him encouragement and help. In his extremity he turned to the one woman for whom he had ever cared,—if we except his mother, who, poor woman, was of an artfulness so bovine that her support was a much more useful asset in his enemies’ game than to his own position. For Antonine, unfortunately, Aquilia Severa was also worse than useless; she may have cared for him, but her return spelt his ruin and destruction.

Not that Antonine was by any means at the end of his resources as yet. If he hesitated, no one knew it. Like Caligula, he must have spent nearly £400,000,000 of our money, and was radiant because he had achieved the impossible. But he was worried, and, again like Caligula, in the nick of time he remembered the sure and certain way to glory. As an Antonine at the head of a conquering army he would again advance against the Marcomanni, the men inhabiting Bavaria and Bohemia, whom Commodus had reduced.

Now, the oracles had predicted that an Antonine should finish this war, a circumstance which commended itself to the Emperor from more points of view than one. Like every religious person in the Empire Antonine was superstitious. Zonaras recounts that the boy wore 600 amulets; but, as he was not there to see, and the contemporary authors do not mention the fact, we can dismiss this with similarly exaggerated stories. Not that the use of these aids to piety or tickets to heaven is even now extinct; the idea may still be found set forth, with both precision and logic, in any manual of prayers under the heading “Brown Scapular,” or “St. Simon Stock.” More ridiculous and more wicked were the figments of imagination, by means of which men tried to dissuade Antonine from undertaking this war. They told him that these Marcomanni had been conquered by means of enchantments and magic ceremonies, the sole property of Chaldeans and other soothsayers. Remove these enchantments, and those same enemies of the Empire would break out into open rebellion once more. Antonine, therefore, sought to know the enchantments and how to destroy them, so that a pretext might be found for recommencing the war, which he, as an Antonine, was eager to finish, lest that honour should fall to another. Here even Lampridius is sympathetic; he says that a war would have enabled the Emperor to merit the name of Antonine, which he, along with nearly all the others, had sullied; but the opportunity was not given him; death came too soon to enable him to make the preparations.

Lampridius now enters upon a few more pious reflections, and in the course of his argument a few more terminological inexactitudes concerning the Emperor’s name and family history. He states that Antonine had not only usurped that august name, but had profaned it, until it became a name of public ridicule; that he was called nothing but Varius and Heliogabalus. These remarks are both unnecessary and untrue. The Emperor was never called either Varius or Heliogabalus. The name of his God, which he assumed at Nicomedia, was never in any sort of way an official title; neither does Varius appear on any known coin, inscription, or document. This Emperor is frequently cited as Priest of Elagabal, Priest of the Most High God, which title was, by the way, often obliterated on the monuments instead of the name Antonine, when Alexander defaced, or partly defaced, these after his cousin’s death.

Like the name Jahwe, the El of the Hebrews, this name Elagabal, the El of the Emesans, was in all probability considered too holy for common use, at least during the Emperor’s lifetime. After his death, it was applied to him as a sort of nickname, just as Caligula or Caracalla had been applied to former Emperors, or even like the term “Romanist” was applied more recently to the last Stuart King of this country.[58]

To this latter period of the reign we may ascribe a certain amount of Antonine’s activity in building. Lampridius mentions at least two monuments of importance, the first a gigantic column which he purposed to erect, a staircase inside, round which should be engraved or chiselled, not the history of the Emperor’s deeds, not even the history of the family exploits, but a record of the miracles which God had wrought, and for which men gave thanks. Antonine was murdered before the project could be fulfilled, and Rome lost the finest of those most beautiful relics of antiquity—the columns which still grace her forums and market-places. The second was a high tower which he built in accordance with the prophecy of certain Syrian priests, that his death as well as his life should be violent. All traces of this tower and its location have disappeared; so have the sheets of gold covered with jewels, with which he paved the court below, in pursuance of his desire to perish magnificently. The idea of this extravagance was that of a splendid suicide, to be accomplished by throwing himself from the summit of the tower on to the sparkling beauty beneath, thus finding sensuousness even in death. Antonine had read Iambulus; he knew the history of the men in the Fortunate Isles, who, when they were overtaken by the ennui of sheer happiness, lay on perfumed grass which had the faculty of producing a voluptuous death. His conception was not so easy, but what it lost in ease it gained in splendour.

In addition to these works, mention must be made of the completion of the Antonine baths, now known as those of Caracalla, the Thermae Varianae on the Aventine, which are variously named by Pauly as Thermae Syrae or Surae, and the hall built for the Senaculum on the Quirinal. These are authentic works, and there are many other instances cited by Lampridius of this Emperor’s passion for building. We hear of houses, baths, huge salt-water lakes, built in the mountains and fastnesses of the country districts. All these were erected, so the story goes, but for a moment, as temporary shelters for the monarch when travelling, and were destroyed when once he had reached his next habitation. Even Lampridius states that such records are obviously false, the inventions of those who wished to malign Antonine, once Alexander was possessed of the supreme power, sycophants Lampridius calls them, who makes such a poor show himself when occupying that unenviable position at Constantine’s bidding.

There is yet another point which must be examined in connection with the murder of this Emperor, namely the so-called disaffection of the soldiers. Time and again, throughout the history of the reign, we learn from coins and inscriptions that Antonine was popular with all ranks of the army. On the other hand, we have the repeated assurance of all authors, both Greek and Latin, that the Emperor was continually losing his popularity.

More reliance could be placed on the written testimony if the authors agreed as to when this popularity was lost. As a matter of fact, Lampridius ascribes the beginning, progress, and culmination of this dislike to each separate year; on the later occasions, seemingly, because he had forgotten that he had already stated definitely that the affection for the Emperor was a thing of the past. Nevertheless, the story cannot be entirely dismissed as a mere fable, since there were two military risings or disturbances, in the second of which the Emperor lost his life.

The question must occur as to whether these are traceable to actual disaffection or to some conspiracy. The side-lights which all authors throw on the progress of events leave no doubt in our minds that the two risings were definite conspiracies, worked up by interested persons,—such wholly unsuccessful plots as those of Seius Carus and Pomponius Bassus may be left out of consideration here, as they were at once discovered and as easily frustrated. The fact remains, however, that Antonine was killed, most probably in the Praetorian camp, and that his body, having been dragged about the city, was thrown into the Tiber, near the Aemilian Bridge, or else cast down a drain which ran into the river, in order to show contempt for his sacred person. Again, there was no effort made to punish the wrong-doers. The Praetorians themselves, when they knew of the murder, made no outcry, which circumstances tend to show a certain amount of acquiescence on the part of the soldiers and people. How, then, had Antonine alienated in 222 the men who in 220 testified such devotion to his person and rule?

A considerable amount of disaffection can be traced to the foolish neglect which the Emperor showed towards his troops. He was their nominee; to them he owed his throne. He had promised them the money, privileges, and affection which had been his father’s special care. Once in sure possession of the Empire, this policy was changed. The first congiary in 218 was undoubtedly accompanied by a donative of satisfying amplitude. At the second (on the occasion of his first marriage) we are told that the Emperor gave more to the humblest citizen of Rome, more to the wives of the Senators, than he bestowed on the men who had placed him on the throne a year previously. There is no record of any other liberality until the early part of the year 221, on the occasion of the dual marriage, his own with Aquilia Severa and that of his God with Vesta, the Madonna of Old Rome. On this occasion no mention is made of any money distributed to the military forces. The same may be said for the fourth liberality, given in July 221, to celebrate the adoption of Alexander.

These official liberalities were by no means the only distributions by which Antonine endeared himself to the civilian populace. On the occasion of his taking the Consulate, he went out of his way to bestow magnificent gifts on the populace. After the great summer procession in 221 he distributed a vast number of costly presents amongst the crowd. He instituted two lotteries, one for the comedians, one for the citizens. He gave to his friends and to the poor more than they could carry away, but on all of these occasions we are expressly told that he limited his generosity to the civil population.

Obviously Antonine was tired of the army. And, being Emperor, he decided to give to whomsoever he pleased, to neglect whom he would. It was not immoral, at least in our judgment, it was stupid, which is far worse, and, as every one has discovered for himself, stupidity brings greater penalties than immorality.

Of the fourth and fifth congiaries, concerning which Mediobarbus speaks, we can say nothing, as in the opinion of competent numismatists (Cohen and Eckhel) they do not belong to this reign at all; there certainly are coins bearing the inscription “Marcus Aurelius Antoninus,” and on the obverse “Liberalitas V. VI.”; but science and discrimination now assign these to the reign of Caracalla, not to that of the Emperor under discussion.

There is certainly one point of view from which this neglect of the soldiers appeared immoral, namely, the military. Promises had been made and, as is usual with promises, they had been broken. Mamaea took advantage of this circumstance, and small wonder if, her secret, though regular, distributions aiding, the lords of Rome felt that their position was ignominious when they saw others, actors, sycophants, loafers, procurers, strumpets, and the like, receiving what they felt was theirs by right; small wonder if they listened to and profited by her promises of the substantial gratitude which would follow the substitution of Alexander for the ungrateful civilian who now held the purse-strings.

It must be confessed that Mamaea’s money and promises were of little effect while Antonine lived. The Emperor was certainly well served. Each plot was easily frustrated; never would sufficient men turn out in rebellion. When he died, those whom she had paid most liberally convinced the rest of their proper attitude, and the first liberality of Alexander’s reign was a sufficient _pourboire_ to close most mouths. Those who created disturbances followed their master to the grave, or rather the cloaca.

The exact time of Antonine’s murder is, as we have said, most uncertain. Dion ascribes to him a tenure of power lasting 3 years 9 months and 4 days from the day of the battle in which he gained supreme command—8th June 218. This fixes the day of his death as 11th March 222. It is a statement with which the editors of the _Prosopographia_, Groebe, Salzer, and Rubensohn, all agree. The _Liber generationis_[59] gives 6 years 8 months and 28 days, and is supported by the _Chronicle_ of 354, which gives equally explicitly 6 years 8 months and 18 days. The discrepancy is at first sight most disconcerting, especially as the two latter statements are both—at least nominally—official. The coins limit the reign to four years at the outside, in consequence of which some explanation has to be found for the extraordinary addition of three years in both the _Chronicle_ and the _Liber generationis_. Mommsen has suggested that a deflection of the two first strokes of III in the number of the years has created the error in both these documents. Later writers have accounted for the difference between Dion’s VIIII months and the VIII of the Latin sources, as due to the omission of one stroke in the latter, the confusion in the number of days by the fact that an X has been omitted in the _Chronicle_. Mommsen’s emendation seems perfectly plausible, but the absurd quibbles used to bring into agreement what was in all probability for some time a moot point can be passed over without much mention.

Rubensohn has a much more reasonable conclusion, namely, that the times given in the _Chronicle_ and _Liber generationis_ refer not to the date of the battle at all, but to the date of the proclamation or to the date of Julianus’ defeat, some time during the early days of May 218. Lampridius, of course, chips in with another discordant note, namely, that “A.D. pridie nonas Martias” the Senate received their new Emperor Alexander with acclamations, but for present purposes he may be left out of count, as we have no confirmation of this very late statement. Eutropius’ statement of 2 years and 8 months refers only to the residence in Rome, and Victor’s 30 months is utterly out of the question, as is also Lampridius’ statement that this monster occupied the throne for nearly three years. Still more disconcerting than the wild statements of the biographers is the fact that right up to 8th December 222 certain rescripts are dated with the names of both Antonine and Alexander, “Conss.”; two only, one in March and one in October, appear with Alexander as sole Consul, and this inscription occurs on a rescript dated “III non. Febr.,” when, if any other evidence is to be accepted, Antonine was still alive. It was on this count that Stobbe based his assertion that Antonine was killed, or at least put out of the government, as early as 5th or 6th January, and that Mamaea used her new power as soon as ever Alexander was officially recognised as Consul. It is certainly a theory for which something may be said, but would entirely dispose of the circumstantial accounts which the historians have left of the boy’s murder. If this supposition is true, then Mamaea possessed herself of the Emperor’s person by means of a riot in the camp, immediately after Alexander became Consul, deprived him of his friends and support, and thus gradually accustomed the populace to his absence, before she killed him. This would certainly account for the placidity with which Rome received news of his death at some later period, but would not account for the discrepancy of the coins and rescripts, the first of which make Alexander sole Emperor by the early summer, the second, which call Antonine Consul, presume that he was still alive as late as December in the same year (222).

From a numismatic point of view there have been further difficulties raised as to the length of the reign, on account of Antonine having reached his fourth Consulate and fifth tribunician year, but these have been raised by persons who have neglected Eckhel and have not always verified their references. The regular coins tell us that Antonine had reached his fourth Consulate and fifth year of tribunician power when he died. Certain writers, notably Valsecchius and Pagi, have postulated that the Emperors always renewed the tribunician powers on the anniversary of their succession, others, such as Stobbe, that the date of the tribunician power would always be put on each coin when that of the Consulship was given. Neither of these contentions can be admitted for an instant, as Eckhel has proved most conclusively, and as can be further demonstrated from the very coins these writers cite as proofs of their several contentions. Valsecchius’ theory was that Antonine thought he began to reign on the murder of his father Caracalla, and dated his tribunician year in consequence from 8th April 217. This would make him in his second tribunician year by 8th June 218, and the coins should appear as “T.P. II Cos.” Unfortunately for the theory, there is not a single example of this aberration, as Turre pointed out some centuries ago. Pagi, on the other hand, thought that Antonine dated his reign from 16th March 218, and renewed his tribunician powers every year on that date; he accepted Dion’s date, 11th March, for Antonine’s decease, and, in consequence, postulated that coins struck with the legend “T PV Cos IIII” were struck in anticipation of the event of 16th March 222. Against this Eckhel urges that the whole theory is utterly unnecessary, because it throws all the rest of the coins out of date in order to make a setting for nine, which are in reality perfectly regular.

The truth obviously lies in Eckhel’s theory, which has been rejected by Stobbe because it is so simple and obvious, namely, that Antonine renewed both consular and tribunician powers on the same day, 1st January, a contention which the Fasti Romani amply corroborate. Naturally, as we know from Dion, the first year began on 8th June, when Antonine’s name was substituted for that of Macrinus. On 1st January 219 Antonine took his second Consulship and second tribunician powers. On 1st January 220 the Emperor became Consul for the third time, Tribune of the People third time. On 1st January 221 Gratus and Seleucus were Consuls, Antonine Tribune of the People fourth time; 1st January 222 Antonine and Alexander Coss. IIII and I, Antonine Tribune of the People fifth time. All is duly set out on the coins in regular order.

The basis for other theories was found by fertile brains when Cohen listed a few irregularities in the dating, notably three coins dated T.P. Cos. II, which just inverted Valsecchius’ theory, and, said Stobbe, showed that the Emperor had renewed his Consulate on 1st January, and had not yet renewed his powers as Tribune of the People. It was undoubtedly plausible, but Stobbe omitted to notice another coin whose date is T.P. Cos. IIII, which, on his own theory of the number invariably affixed to T.P. as well as to Cos., would signify that the Emperor had never renewed his tribunician powers at all, or else had renewed his consular powers four times in one year, both of which ideas are demonstrably absurd. Along with his supposition that the number would always be affixed to T.P. whenever it also followed Cos., Stobbe formulated another theory partly based on the idea which had been enunciated by Pagi concerning the date of the coins marked T.P. V Cos. IIII, and supported his contention from an example listed by Cohen as T.P. IIII, Cos. IIII. It was to the effect that as the Emperors Septimius Severus, Caracalla, Geta, and Alexander Severus had renewed their tribunician powers about the middle of January, Antonine had done the same, and that the paucity of the coins marked T.P. V Cos. IIII is due to the fact that he was murdered very shortly after, if not before the issue was completed, and the tribunicial renewal had taken place. Stobbe’s proof lay in the fact that Cohen had listed these three coins as above (T.P. IIII Cos. IIII), which, this critic affirmed, were issued after January 1st and before the tribunicial renewal,—about the middle of the month.

But it was mere theory on both counts. As Egbert showed later, the tribunicial renewal in the case of Septimius, Caracalla, and Geta was not early in January at all; it was on the 10th of December. Macrinus’ renewal was early in January, so was Alexander’s, but this was not conclusive evidence that Antonine renewed his powers on the same date. There certainly are coins, three of them, listed by Cohen, two in France at the Bib. Nat., and one in the British Museum marked T.P. IIII Cos. IIII. This was clear proof, said Stobbe, that the tribunician powers were renewed after the consular powers, and that T.P. V Cos. IIII were later in the same year (222) than T.P. IIII Cos. IIII. The French coins I have not seen, but I have had the privilege of examining that in the British Museum (Cohen, vol. iv. p. 342, No. 197), and find that Cohen has misread the number affixed to the Cos.; it is listed as T.P. IIII Cos. IIII, but is in reality T.P. IIII Cos. III P.P. (_i.e._ the year 221). The first P has been read into the number,—which same inscription is most probably on the French coins as well as on that in the British Museum, since it appears gratuitous to impute a mistake to contemporaries by way of making copy for later critics. I have noted yet another mistake, namely, two coins listed by Cohen as irregularities; they are dated, T.P. III Cos. IIII (p. 344, Nos. 210, 211). On these another admirable theory has been based, namely, that Antonine was going to take the Consulate, had his coins struck, and then backed out at the beginning of 221, thus before he had renewed his powers as tribune. Again very pretty, but the British Museum has the coins, and they are not dated T.P. III Cos. IIII at all; they are quite ordinary—T.P. III Cos. III, or of the year 220, and there is no need to transpose the numbers, which is an alternative theory to that stated above.

The evidence from the coins is quite conclusive. The Emperor renewed his dual powers either on the same day, 1st January, or on a day immediately succeeding. As Eckhel pointed out in 1792 there is no coin which, if the date be correctly read, gives any countenance to any other theory, while all such are unnecessary and at variance with known facts.

Lampridius gives us a certain amount of evidence that the Emperor took an interest in the affairs of state all through his life, both by his account of Antonine’s sagacity as a judge, and his desire to appoint fourteen praefects of the city, under the headship of the Imperial Praefectus Urbis or Urbi. Naturally, the desire is attributed to base motives, namely, in order to benefit unworthy persons. The scheme, Lampridius tells us, was actually carried into operation during Alexander’s reign, and is then applauded as useful and necessary, an obvious bit of special pleading on one side or the other.

It is with a singularly unanimous voice that the authors announce the general execration against the memory of Antonine, and the joy shown by the populace in dragging his dead body about the city. All are certain that the Senate made a general order to deface the name of Antonine on all monuments and documents through the Empire, as soon as that dishonoured Emperor was safely out of the way.

The unanimity is wonderful; all the more wonderful because so utterly unusual. Unfortunately, it is in no way borne out by the inscriptions. We have mentioned the rescripts which for the most part bear Antonine’s name throughout the whole year 222. This circumstance is hardly in consonance with the senatorial action in ordering all mention of the dishonoured Emperor to be expunged (_i.e._ while they themselves continue to use his name publicly and officially). Again, there is an inscription C.I.L. VI. 3015, set up in July 222, which commemorates both Consuls as though alive; and another, though probably a forgery of Ligorius, No. 570, in which the two names appear on 13th April of the same year. Surely this would have been impossible if Antonine were dead and the Senate had ordered his name to be erased everywhere. This order, however, cannot be taken literally; an examination of the existing inscriptions gives quite other results.

The name of Antonine is erased, but only in 40 known cases, while in certain places the name Alexander is substituted for that of Antonine, which, if usual, is rather a cheap way of getting the honour and renown belonging to another. A few African inscriptions blot out the Emperor’s claim to be grandson of Severus, and a few in different parts of the Empire blot out the title Priest of Elagabal, witness the inscription at Walwick Chesters. In 52 cases the names, styles, and titles of Antonine are left intact, which makes it improbable that there was any great campaign against his memory, such as Lampridius would have us believe that every one in the Empire was only too anxious to institute.

Dion and Lampridius both tell us that Antonine was called Tiberinus and Tractitius after his death, in reference to the shameful treatment which his body was supposed to have met with after his murder, and the final act of throwing it into the river in order that it should never be buried. Sardanapalus is another epithet applied to him by Dion and his copier Zonaras, who also call him Pseudo-Antonine, in reference to his grandmother’s statement made “through hatred” in 221, that not he but Alexander was the only legitimate bastard; such and the like were the taunting adjectives by means of which the biographers sought to defame the boy’s memory.

Here, for all practical purposes, Lampridius’ account of the Emperor’s life ceases. There are still seventeen chapters of mere biographical scandal, some of it illuminating, some hypocritically obscene. Nevertheless, it has been possible to abstract from these sections a certain amount of information descriptive of the boy’s extravagances and their setting, his psychology and its result, his religious ambitions, and with them the reasons for his downfall.

These are all obvious traits in Antonine’s character, and can be discerned despite the mass of exaggerations and hostility with which the pages abound. To criticise these statements in any sort of detail is, however, obviously impossible on the information at present available, and furthermore, we are scarcely competent to judge the period from our modern standpoint of prejudice.

There is no period of history which fully corresponds to these last years of imperial greatness; few men who embody the spirit which breathed life into all that splendour, and even fewer in the modern world who understand the revived paganism of the Renaissance. Here too there was a difference. In old Rome it has been said that a sin was a prayer; under Leo X. it was, rather, a taxable luxury. Sinning is still a luxury, but no longer taxable; the Reformation has set us free from such extortion and restraint, and supplied us with hypocrisy and cant to take its place.

From Suetonius we gather that the Roman world sinned and sparkled; we still sin, but are perforce to yawn in the process. The world of Suetonius was the world _où on s’en fichait_. Our world is the world _où on s’ennuie_. Hence our inability to grasp the spirit of philosophical paganism, a spirit whose morality does not consist in improper thoughts about other people, but in a mind set free from terror of the Gods, not very much caring what other people do so long as they do not interfere with us.

It is thus that we must view Elagabalus. To look at him through any other spectacles is to examine the restless, frivolous, perhaps debased dragon-fly as though he were a vampire, and then, imagination aiding, describe him as a stampeding unicorn with a taste for _marrons glacés_.

It is absurd, purely grotesque, this caricature we have of Antonine; perhaps that is why the world has left him alone, that they may gaze the longer on a mask that allures. If these criticisms have done anything to remove part of the accretions with which the world has daubed his figure at the bidding of his relations, the trouble is amply repaid. Naturally, this monograph is not the last word; it is, on the other hand, the first, put forward in the hope that it may at least commend itself as a point of view. Neither is it a compromise with the proprieties, which are, after all, in the modern world, little else save a compromise with either our neighbours or the police; what one expects from them, certainly not how much they may expect from oneself, or even from Elagabalus.