seeking, as he said, its master and stating that Antoninus was dead and Jupiter reigned. Arrested for his behavior, he was sent by Maternianus to Antoninus, and he declared: "I depart, as you bid, but I shall face not this emperor but another." Afterwards on coming to Capua he vanished.

[Sidenote:—8—] This took place while the prince was still alive.] At the horse-race [held in memory of Severus's reign] the statue of Mars, while being carried in procession, fell down. This perhaps would not arouse such great wonder, but listen to the greatest marvel of all. The Green faction had been defeated, whereupon, catching sight of a jackdaw, which was screeching very loud on the tip of a javelin, they all gazed at him and all of a sudden, as if by previous arrangement, cried out: "Hail Martialius, Martialius hail, long it is since we beheld thee!" It was not that the jackdaw was ever so called, but through him they were greeting, apparently under some divine inspiration, Martialius, the assassin of Antoninus. To some, indeed, Antoninus seemed to have foretold his own end, inasmuch as in the last letter that he sent to the senate he had said: "Cease praying that I may reign a hundred years." The petition mentioned had always been uttered from the beginning of his sovereignty and this was the first and only time that he found fault with it. Thus, while his words were simply meant to chide them for offering a prayer impossible of accomplishment, he was really indicating that he should no longer rule for any length of time. And when certain persons had once called attention to this fact, it also came to my mind that when he was giving us a banquet in Nicomedea at the Saturnalia and had talked a good deal, as was usual at a symposium, then on our rising to go he had addressed me and said: "With great acumen and truth, Dio, has Euripides remarked that

  "'Neath divers forms the spirit world is lurking,
  Much passing hope the gods are ever working.
  Oft disappointment strikes down sure ambition:
  The unthought chance God brings to full fruition.
  This story leaves things in just that condition.'"

[Footnote: Lines that occur at the end of several of Euripides's dramas.]

At the time this quotation seemed to have been mere nonsense, but when not long after he perished the fact that this was the last speech he uttered to me was thought to infuse into it a certain truly oracular significance with regard to what was to befall him. Similar importance was attached to the utterance of Jupiter called Belus, [Footnote: The same as Baal.] a god revered in Apamea [Footnote: This is the Apamea on the Orontes, built by Seleucus Nicator.] of Syria. He, years before, when Severus was still a private citizen, had spoken to him these verses:

   "Touching eyes and head, like Zeus, whose delight is in thunder,
  Like unto Ares in waist, and in chest resembling Poseidon."
  [Footnote: From Homer's Iliad, II, verses 478-9.]

And later, after his accession as emperor, the god had made this response to an enquiry: "Thy house shall perish utterly in blood." [Footnote: Adapted from Euripides, Phoenician Maidens, verse 20.]

[Sidenote:—9—] [Accordingly the body of Antoninus was then burned, and his bones, brought secretly by night into Rome, were deposited in the mausoleum of the Antonines. All the senators and private individuals, men and women, without exception entertained so violent a hatred of him that all their words and actions relating to him were such as would befit the downfall of a most implacable foe. He was not officially disgraced, because the soldiers did not get from Macrinus the state of peace which they had hoped to secure by a change. Deprived of the profits which they were wont to receive from Antoninus, they began to long for him again. Indeed, their wishes subsequently prevailed to the extent of having him enrolled among the heroes: of course this was voted by the senate.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 217, a.u. 970] In general, abundant ill was consistently spoken of him by everybody. They would no longer term him Antoninus, but [some called him Bassianus, [Footnote: He was originally Septimius Bassianus, named after his maternal grandfather.] his old name, others] Caracalla, as I have mentioned, [Footnote: In chapter 3.] [others] also Tarautas, from the appellation of a gladiator who was [in appearance] very small and very ugly and [in spirit very audacious and] very bloodthirsty.

[Sidenote:—10—] Now his affairs, however one may name him, were in this state. As for me, even before he came to the throne, it was foretold me in a way by his father that I should write this account. Just after his death methought I saw in a great plain the whole power of Rome arrayed in arms, and it seemed as if Severus were sitting [on a knoll there and] on a lofty tribunal conversing with them. And, seeing me standing by to hear what was said, he spoke out: "Come hither, Dio, to this spot; approach nearer, that you may both ascertain accurately and write a history of all that is said and done."—Such was the life and the overthrow of Tarautas. [After him there perished also those who had shared in the plot against him, some at once and others before a great while. His intimate companions and the Cæsarians likewise perished. He had been, as it were, coupled with a spirit of murder that operated equally against enemies and against friends.]

[Sidenote:—11—] Macrinus, by race a Moor from Cæsarea, came from most obscure parents [so that with considerable justice he was likened to the ass that was led to the Palatine by the apparition]. For one thing his left ear had been bored, according to the custom [generally] in vogue among the Moors. His affability was even more striking. As to duties, his comprehension of them was not so accurate as his performance of them was faithful. [Thus it was, thanks to the advocacy of a friend's cause, that he became known to Plautianus, and at first he took the position of manager of the latter's property; subsequently he ran a risk of perishing together with his employer, but was unexpectedly saved by the intercession of Cilo and was given charge of the vehicles of Severus that passed back and forth along the Flaminian Way.] From Antoninus [after securing some titles of a short-lived procuratorship] he obtained an appointment as prefect and administered the affairs of this responsible position excellently and with entire justice, [so far as he was free to act independently. This, then, was his general character and these the steps of his advancement. Even during the life of Tarautas he was led, in the way that I have described, to harbor in his mind the hope of empire;] and at his death [he did not, to be sure, either that day or the two following days occupy the office, in order to avoid the imputation of having killed him with such intentions: but for that space of time the Roman state remained completely bereft of a ruler possessing authority, though without the people's knowing it. He communicated with the soldiers in every direction,—that is to say, the ones who were in Mesopotamia on account of the war but instead of being in one body were scattered all about; and he won their allegiance through the agency of his [Footnote: Reading [Greek: ohi] (Dindorf) instead of [Greek: hos].] friends], among his various offers being a suggestion that they might secure a respite from the war, which was an especial cause of dissatisfaction to them: and so on the fourth day [the anniversary of Severus's birthday] he was chosen emperor by them [after making a show of resistance].

[Sidenote:—12—] [He delivered an address full of good points and held out hopes of many advantages to the rest of mankind as well. Those who had been doomed to some life punishment for an act of impiety, of the kind that is so named with reference to attitude toward