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[Sidenote:—34—] [lacuna] Marcianus [lacuna] Macrinus [lacuna] (for Marcellus was dead) he put this person to death; but, lacking courage to proceed further on his own responsibility without Macrinus, he sent for the latter. Macrinus came quickly to the Alban soldiers at Apamea and appointed his son emperor in spite of the lad's being but ten years old, in order that with this excuse he might mollify the soldiers by various means, chief among which should be the promise of five thousand denarii; he assigned them a thousand each on the spot and restored to the rest complete allowances of food and everything else of which they had been deprived: in this way he hoped to appease them. With this same end in view he bestowed upon the populace a dinner worth one hundred and fifty denarii a head before revealing to them anything about the uprising; for he wanted it to be thought that he was banqueting them not because of that event but to show honor to his son. And on that occasion first one of the revolted soldiers approached him carrying the head of Julianus (who had been found somewhere in hiding and slain), in many linen cloths and tied up very strongly indeed with ropes, pretending it was the head of the False Antoninus. He had sealed the package with the finger ring of Julianus. After doing that the soldier ran out when the head was uncovered. Macrinus, upon discovering what had been done, no longer dared either to stay where he was or to assault the fortification, but returned to Antioch with all speed. So the Alban legion and the rest who were wintering in that region likewise revolted. The opposing parties continued their preparations and both sides sent messengers and letters to the provinces and to the legions. As a result perturbation was caused in many places by the first communication of each side about the other and by the constant messages contradicting each other. In the course of the uncertainty numerous letter-carriers on both sides lost their lives, and numbers of those who had slain the followers of Antoninus, or had not immediately attached themselves to their cause, were censured. Some perished on this account and some merely incurred a small loss. Hence I will pass over most of this (it is all very much alike and permits of no considerable description in detail) and will give a summary of what took place in Egypt.
[Sidenote:—35—] The governor of that country was Basilianus, whom Macrinus had also made prefect in place of Julianus. Some interests were managed also by Marius Secundus, although he had been created senator by Macrinus and was at the head of affairs in Phoenicia. In this way both of them were dependent upon Macrinus and for that reason put to death the runners of the False Antoninus. As long, therefore, as the outcome of the business was still in dispute, they and the soldiers and the individuals were in suspense, some wishing and praying and reporting one thing and others the opposite, as always in factional disturbances. When the news of the defeat of Macrinus arrived, a riot of some magnitude followed, in which many of the populace and not a few of the soldiers were destroyed. Secundus found himself in a dilemma; and Basilianus, fearing that he should lose his life instanter, effected his escape from Egypt. After coming to the vicinity of Brundusium in Italy he was discovered, having been betrayed by a friend in Rome to whom he had sent a secret message asking for food. So he was later taken back to Nicomedea and executed.
[Sidenote:—36—] Macrinus wrote also to the senate about the False Antoninus [as he did also to the governors everywhere], calling him "boy" and saying that he was mad. He wrote also to Maximus, the præfectus urbi, giving him such information as one might expect, and further stating that the soldiers recently enlisted insisted upon receiving all that they were wont to have before, and that the rest, who had been deprived of nothing, made common cause with them in their anger at what was withheld. And to omit a recital, he said, of all the many means devised by Severus and his son for the ruin of rigid discipline, it was impossible for the troops to be given their entire pay in addition to the donatives which they were receiving; for the increase in their pay granted by Tarautas amounted to seven thousand myriads annually, and could not be given, partly because the soldiers and again because [lacuna] righteous [lacuna] but the recognized expenditures [lacuna] and the [lacuna] could he himself and the child as [lacuna] himself [lacuna] and he commiserated himself upon having a son, but said that he found it a solace in his disaster to think that he had outlived the fratricide who attempted to destroy the whole world. He also added to the missive something like the following: "I know that there are many who are more anxious to have emperors killed than to have them live, but this is one thing I can not say in respect to myself, that any one could either desire or pray that I should perish." At which Fulvius Diogenianus exclaimed: "We have all prayed for it!"
[Sidenote:—37—] The speaker was one of the ex-consuls, but not of very sound mind, and consequently he caused himself as much exasperation as he did other people. He also [lacuna] the subscription [lacuna] of letter [lacuna] and to the [lacuna] leather it had been entrusted to read [lacuna] and those [lacuna] and [lacuna] others and also [lacuna] be sent [lacuna] directly as [lacuna] hesitating [lacuna] ordering [lacuna] by the [lacuna] and both to others [lacuna] of foremost to the [lacuna] any care for the common preserver [lacuna] over [lacuna] that the False Antoninus finding in the chests of Macrinus not yet [lacuna] he himself voluntarily [lacuna] published [lacuna] calumny [lacuna] making with reference to the soldiers. And he marched so quickly against him that Macrinus could with difficulty encounter him in a village of the Antiochians one hundred and fifty stades distant from the city. There, so far as the zeal of the Pretorians went, he had him conquered (he had taken from them their breastplates scales and their grooved shields and had thus rendered them lighter for the battle): but he was beaten by his own cowardice, as Heaven had foreshown to him. For on that day when his first letter about the imperial office was read to us a pigeon had lighted upon an image of Severus (whose name he had applied to himself) that stood in the senate-chamber. [And subsequently, when the communication about his son was sent, we had convened, not at the bidding of the consuls or the prætors (for they did not happen to be present) but of the tribunes,—a practice which by this time had fallen more or less into disuse. And he had not written even his name in the preface of the letter, though he termed him Cæsar and emperor and indicated that the contents emanated from them both. Also, in the rehearsal of events, he mentioned the name Diadumenianus, but left out that of Antoninus, though he had this title too. Such was the state of these [Sidenote:—38—] affairs; and, by Jupiter, when he sent word about the uprising of the False Antoninus, the consuls uttered certain formulæ against him, as is regularly done under such circumstances, and one of the prætors and another of the tribunes did the same. War was declared and solemnly proclaimed against the usurper and his cousin and their mothers and their grandmother, and immunity was granted to those that had taken part in the uprising, in case they should submit, according as Macrinus had promised them. For the conversation he had had with the soldiers was read aloud.] As a result of this, we all condemned still more strongly his abasement and folly. [For one thing] he was most constantly calling himself "father" and Diadumenianus his "son," and he kept holding up to reproach the age of the False Antoninus, though he had designated as emperor his son, who was much younger. [Now in the battle Gannys hurriedly took possession of the narrow place in front of the village and disposed his soldiers in good order for warfare, regardless of the fact that he was most inexperienced in military matters. Of such surpassing importance is good fortune in comparison with other qualifications, that it actually bestows understanding upon the ignorant.] But his army made a very weak fight and the men would not have stood their ground, had not Mæsa and Soæmias [for they were already in the boy's retinue] leaped down from their vehicles and, rushing among the fugitives, by their lamentations restrained them from flight, and had not the lad himself been seen by them (by some divine disposition of affairs) with drawn sword on horseback charging the enemy. Even so they would have turned their backs again, had not Macrinus fled at sight of their resistance.
[Sidenote:—39—] The latter, having been thus defeated on the eighth of June, sent his son in charge of Epagathus and some other attendants, to Artabanus, king of the Parthians. He himself went to Antioch, giving out that victory was his, to the end that he might be offered shelter there. Then, when the news of his defeat became noised abroad, in the midst of many consequent slaughters both along the roads and in the city, springing from somebody's favoring the one side or the other, he made his escape. From Antioch he proceeded by night, on horseback, with his head and whole chin shaved, and attired in a dark garment worn over his purple robe in order that he might, so far as possible, resemble an ordinary citizen. In this way, with a few companions, he reached Ægæ in Cilicia, and there, by pretending to be one of the soldiers that carried messages, he got a wagon, on which he drove through Cappadocia and Galatia and Bithynia as far as the shipyard of Eribolus, which is opposite the city of Nicomedea. It was his intention to make his way back to Rome, expecting that there he could gain some assistance from the senate and from the people. And, if he had escaped thither, he would certainly have accomplished something. For their disposition was decidedly more favorable to him, in view of the hardihood of the Syrians, the age of the False Antoninus, and the uncontrolledness of Gannys and Comazon, so that even the soldiers would either voluntarily [Footnote: Reading [Greek: 'hechhontast'] instead of [Greek: thnhêschontast].] have changed their attitude or, refusing to do so, would have been overpowered. As it turned out, however, if any one recognized him in the course of his journey so far described, at least no one ventured to lay hands on him: but he came to grief on his voyage from Eribolus to Chalcedon. He did not dare to enter Nicomedea [through fear of the governor of Bithynia, Cæcilius Aristo], and so he sent to one of the procurators asking for money, and in this way he became known. He was overtaken [while still] in Chalcedon and, on the arrival of those sent by the False Antoninus in order that [lacuna] now if ever [lacuna] he was arrested [by Aurelius Celsus, a centurion,] and taken to Cappadocia [like a man held in no honor]. Ascertaining there that his son had also been captured [(Claudius Pollio, the centurion of the legion, had arrested him while driving through Zeugma, where, in the course of a previous journey, he had been designated Cæsar)], he threw himself from the conveyance (for he had not been bound) and at the time suffered a fracture of his shoulder; but subsequently (though not a great deal later) being sentenced to die before entering Antioch, he was slain by Marcianus Taurus, a centurion, and his body remained unburied until the False Antoninus could come from Syria into Bithynia and gloat over it.
[Sidenote:—40—] So Macrinus, when an old man,—for he was fifty-four years of age [lacking three or five days],—and eminent in experience of affairs, displaying some degree of excellence and commanding so many legions, was overthrown by a mere child of whose very name he had previously been ignorant,—even as the oracle had foretold to him; [lacuna] for upon his applying [to Zeus Belus] it had answered him:
"Old man, verily warriors young harass and exhaust thee:
Utterly spent is thy strength, and a grievious eld comes upon thee!"
[Footnote: From Homer's Iliad, VIII, verses 102-103.]
And fleeing [lacuna] or [lacuna], having played part of runaway slave through the provinces which he had ruled, arrested like some robber by common officers, beholding himself with villains most dishonored [lacuna] guarded before whom often many senators had been brought; and his death was ordered who had the authority to punish or to release any Roman whomsoever, and he was arrested and beheaded by centurions, when he had authority to put to death both them and others, inferior and superior. And his son likewise perished.