240

THE DECLINE AND FALL

CHAP.

VI.

Accessionof Alexan-der Seve-rtis.

be appeased by the presence and authority ofthe popular youth. Provoked at this new in-stance of their affection for his cousin, and theircontempt for his person, the emperor venturedto punish some of the leaders of the mutiny.His unseasonable severity proved instantly fatalto his minions, his mother, and himself. liilaga-balus was massacred by the indignant praeto-rians, his mutilated corpse dragged throughthe streets of the city and thrown into the Ty-ber. His memory was branded with eternalinfamy by the senate; the justice of whose de-cree has been ratified by posterity . 11

In the room of Elagabalus, his cousin Alex-ander was raised to the throne by the praetorianguards. His relation to the family of Severus,whose name, he assumed, was the same as thatof his predecessor; his virtue and his dangerhad already endeared him to the Romans, andthe eager liberality of the senate conferred up-on him, in one day, the various titles and

p The era of the death of Elagabalus , and of the accession ofAlexander, has employed the learning and ingenuity of Pagi, Tille-mont, Valsecchi, Vignoli, and Torre, bishop of Adria. The ques-tion is most assuredly intricate; but I still adhere to the authorityof Dion, the truth of whose calculations is undeniable, and thepurity of whose text is justified by the agreement of Xiphilin , Zo.naras, and Cedrenus. Elagabalus reigned three years, nine months,and four days, from his victory over Macrinus , and was killedMarch 10, 222. But what shall we reply to the medals, undoubt-edly genuine, which reckon the fifth year of his tribunitian power?We shall reply with the learned Valsecchi, that the usurpation ofMacrinus was annihilated, and that the son of Caracalla dated hisreign from his father’s death. After resolving this great difficulty,the smaller knots of this question may be easily untied, or cut asim-