Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/201

CHAP. VI.
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Sedition of the guards, and murder of Elagabalus. A.D. 222. March 10.It was impossible that such a reconciHation should last, or that even the mean soul of Elagabalus could hold an empire on such humiliating terms of dependence. He soon attempted, by a dangerous experiment, to try the temper of the soldiers. The report of the death of Alexander, and the natural suspicion that he had been murdered, inflamed their passions into fury; and the tempest of the camp could only be appeased by the presence and authority of the popular youth. Provoked at this new instance of their affection for his cousin, and their contempt for his person, the emperor ventured to punish some of the leaders of the mutiny. His unseasonable severity proved instantly fatal to his minions, his mother, and himself. Elagabalus was massacred by the indignant pretorians, his mutilated corpse dragged through the streets of the city, and thrown into the Tiber. His memory was branded with eternal infamy by the senate ; the justice of whose decree has been ratified by posterity^[1].

Accession of Alexander Severus.In the room of Elagabalus, his cousin Alexander was raised to the throne by the pretorian guards. His relation to the family of Severus, whose name he assumed, was the same as that of his predecessor ; his virtue and his danger had already endeared him to the Romans; and the eager liberality of the senate conferred upon him, in one day, the various titles and powers of the imperial dignity^[2] . But as Alexander was a modest and dutiful youth, of only seventeen years of

1. The era of the death of Elagabalus, and of the accession of Alexander, has employed the learning and ingenuity of Pagi, Tillemont, Valsecchi, Vignoli, and Torre bishop of Adria. The question is most assuredly intricate J but I still adhere to the authority of Dion ; the truth of whose calculations is undeniable, and the purity of whose text is justified by the agreement of Xiphilin, Zonaras, and Cedrenus. Elagabalus reigned three years, nine months, and four days, from his victory over Macrinus, and was killed March 10, 222. But what shall we reply to the medals, undoubtedly genuine, which reckon the fifth year of his tribunitian power? We shall reply, with the learned Valsecchi, that the usurpation of Macrinus was annihilated, and that the son of Caracalla dated his reign from his father's death. After resolving this great difficulty, the smaller knots of this question may be easily untied, or cut asunder.
2. Hist. August, p. 114. By this unusual precipitation, the senate meant to confound the hopes of pretenders, and prevent the factions of the armies.