the young Alexander. The rage of Elagabalus against that youth became at length so great that he resolved to annul the adoption, and he sent orders to the senate and soldiers no longer to give him the title of Cæsar. The consequence was a mutiny in the camp, and he was obliged to proceed thither accompanied by Alexander, and agree to dismiss all the companions and agents of his vices, and to promise a reformation of his life. He thus escaped the present danger, but his violent hatred of Alexander soon induced him to make a new effort to destroy him. To ascertain the temper of the soldiers he caused a report to be spread of the death of that prince. A tumult instantly arose, which was only appeased by his appearing in the camp with Alexander; but finding how quickly it then subsided, he thought he might venture on punishing some of the ringleaders. The tumult again broke out; Soæmis and Mamæa animated their respective partizans, those of the latter proved victorious, and the wretched Elagabalus was dragged from a privy in which he had concealed himself, and slain in the arms of his mother, who shared his fate. A stone was fastened to his body, which was flung into the Tiber. Almost all his minions and ministers fell victims to the popular vengeance.

M. Aurelius Alexander Severus.

A.U. 975-988. A.D. 222-235.

Both the senate and the army joyfully concurred in the elevation of Alexander to the empire; and the former body, lest any competitor should appear, hastened to confer on him all the imperial titles and powers. On account of his youth and his extremely amiable disposition he was entirely directed by his grandmother and mother, but Mæsa dying soon after his accession, the sole direction of her son fell to Mamæa. There is some reason to suppose that this able woman had embraced the Christian religion, now so prevalent throughout the empire; at all events, in her guidance of public affairs she exhibited a spirit of wisdom, justice, and moderation such as had not appeared in any preceding empress. Her enemies laid to her charge the love of power and the love of money, and blamed her son for deferring too much to her; but their ac

cusations are vague, and no act of cruelty caused by avarice stains the annals of this reign.

The first care of Mamaa was to form a wise and upright council for her son. Sixteen of the most respectable of the senate, with the learned Ulpian, the prætorian prefect, at their head, composed this council, and nothing was ever done without their consent and approbation. A general system of reformation was commenced and steadily pursued. All the absurd acts of the late tyrant were reversed. His god was sent back to Emesa; the statues of the other deities were restored to their temples; the ministers of his vices and pleasures were sold or banished, some of the worst were drowned; the unworthy persons whom he had placed in public situations were dismissed, and men of knowledge and probity put in their places.

Mamæa used the utmost care to keep away from her son all those persons by whom his morals might be corrupted, and in order to have his time fully occupied she induced him to devote the greater part of each day to the administration of justice, where none but the wise and good would be his associates. The good seed fortunately fell into a kindly soil. Alexander was naturally disposed to every virtue, and all his efforts were directed to the promotion of the welfare of the empire over which he ruled.

The first ten years of the reign of this prince were passed at Rome and devoted to civil occupations. His daily course of life has been thus transmitted to us. He usually rose early and entered his private chapel (lararium), in which he had caused to be placed the images of those who had been teachers and benefactors of the human race, among whom he included the divine founder of the Christian religion. Having performed his devotions, he took some kind of exercise, and then applied himself for some hours to public business with his council. He then read for some time, his favourite works being the republics of Plato and Cicero, and the verses of Horace, and the life of Alexander the Great, whom he greatly admired. Gymnastic exercises, in which he excelled, suc ceeded. He then was anointed and bathed, and took a light breakfast, usually of bread, milk, and eggs. In the afternoon he was attended by his secretaries, and he heard his letters read and signed the answers to them. The business of the day being concluded, his friends in general were admitted, and a frugal and simple dinner followed, at which the conversation

was mostly of a serious instructive nature, or some literary work was read out to the emperor and his guests.

The dress of Alexander was plain and simple; his manners were free from all pride and haughtiness; he lived with the senators on a footing of friendly equality, like Augustus, Vespasian, and the wiser and better emperors. He was liberal and generous to all orders of the people, and he took an especial pleasure in assisting those persons of good family who had fallen into poverty without reproach. Among the virtues of Alexander was the somewhat rare one in that age of chastity. His mother early caused him to espouse a lady of noble birth named Memnia, whom however he afterwards divorced and even banished to Africa. The accounts of this affair differ greatly. According to one, the father of the empress formed a conspiracy against his son-in-law, which being discovered he was put to death and his daughter divorced. Others say

that as Alexander showed great respect for his father-in-law, Mamæa's jealousy was excited, and she caused him to be slain and his daughter to be divorced or banished. It appears that Alexander soon married again.

We have already observed that a portion of the civil jurisdiction had fallen to the prætorian prefects. This imposed a necessity that one of them should be a civilian, and Mamaa had therefore caused this dignity to be conferred on Ulpian. From the love of law and order which distinguished this prefect, he naturally sought to bring back discipline in the prætorian camp; the consequence was that repeated attempts were made on his life, and the emperor more than once found it necessary to cast his purple over him to save him from the fury of the soldiers. At length (228) they fell on him in the night; he escaped from them to the palace, but they pursued and slaughtered him in the presence of the emperor and his mother.

Some slight actions on the German and Moorish frontiers were the only occupation given to the Roman arms during the early years of the reign of Alexander, but in the year 232 so powerful an enemy menaced the oriental provinces of the empire, that the presence of the emperor became absolutely requisite in the East.

The Parthians, whom we have had such frequent occasion to mention, are said to have been a Scythian (i. e. Turkish) people of the north of Persia, who, taking advantage of the declining power of the Macedonian kings of Syria, cast off

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their yoke (B.C. 250), and then gradually made themselves masters of the whole of Persia. Their dominion had now lasted for five hundred years, and their power had been long on the decline from the usual causes, family dissensions, contested successions, and such like. In the fourth year of Alexander Severus (226) a native Persian, named Artaxerxes (Ardshir), who pretended to be of the ancient royal line, but who is said to have been of humble birth and a mere soldier of fortune, raised a rebellion against the Parthian king, Artabanus. Fortune favoured the rebel, and Artabanus was defeated and slain. Artaxerxes then assumed the tiara, and his line, which existed till the Mohammedan conquest, was named the Sassanian, from the name of his father.

Affecting to be the descendant of the ancient Achæmenians, Artaxerxes sought to restore Persia to its condition under those princes. The Magian or Light-religion resumed the rank from which it had fallen under the sway of the Parthians, and flourished in its pristine glory. As the dominions of the house of Cyrus had extended to the coasts of the Ægæan sea, Artaxerxes ordered the Romans to quit Asia, and when his mandate was unheeded he led his troops over the Tigris. But his ill fortune induced him to attack the invincible Atra, and he was forced to retire with loss and disgrace. He then turned his arms against the Medes and some other of the more northern tribes, and when he had reduced them he again invaded Mesopotamia (232). Alexander now resolved to take the command of his troops in person. He left Rome, followed by the tears and prayers of the people, and proceeded through Illyricum to the East. On his march the strictest discipline was maintained, while every attention was paid to the wants of the soldiers, and care taken that they should be abundantly supplied with clothes and arms. The emperor himself used the same fare as the men, and he caused his tent to be thrown open when he was at his meals that they might perceive his mode of life.

Alexander halted at Antioch to make preparations for the war: meantime he sent an embassy with proposals of peace to Artaxerxes. The Persian in return sent four hundred of his most stately men splendidly clothed and armed to order the Romans to quit Asia; and if we can believe Herodian (for the circumstance is almost incredible), Alexander was so regardless of the laws of nations as to seize and strip them, and

send them prisoners to Phrygia. It is also said that while he was at Antioch, finding that some of the soldiers frequented the Paphian grove of Daphne, he cast them into prison; and that when a mutiny broke out in the legion to which they belonged, he ascended his tribunal, had the prisoners brought before him, and addressed their comrades, who stood around in arms, dwelling on the necessity of maintaining discipline. But when his arguments proved of no effect, and they even menaced him with their arms, he cried out, in imitation of Cæsar*, *, "Quirites, depart, and lay down your arms." The legion obeyed, and the men, no longer soldiers, took up their abode in the houses of the town instead of the camp. After a month the emperor was prevailed on to pardon them, but he punished their tribunes with death; and this legion was henceforth equally distinguished by valour and fidelity.

In imitation of Alexander the Great, the emperor formed six of his legions into a phalanx of thirty thousand men, to whom he gave higher pay. He also had, like that conqueror, bodies of men distinguished by gold-adorned and silveradorned shields-Chrysoaspids and Argyroaspids.

The details of the war cannot be learned with any certainty. One historian says that Alexander made three divisions of his army; one of which was to enter Media through Armenia, another Persia at the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates, while the emperor was in person to lead the third through Mesopotamia, and all were to join in the enemy's country; but that owing to the timidity of Alexander, who loitered on the way, the second division was cut to pieces, and the first nearly all perished while retreating through Armenia in the winter. This account labours under many difficulties; for the emperor certainly triumphed on his return to Rome; and in his speech to the senate on that occasion, he asserted, that of 700 war-elephants which were in the enemy's array he had killed 200, and taken 300; of 1000 scythed chariots he had taken 200; and of 120,000 heavy-armed horsemen he had slain 10,000, beside taking a great number of prisoners. It further appears, that though Alexander did not remain in the East, the Persian monarch made no further attempts on Mesopotamia for some years.

The Germans had taken advantage of the absence of the emperor and the greater part of the troops in the East, to pass the Rhine and ravage Gaul. Alexander therefore leaving

* Hist. of Rome, p. 439.