"Rang the vast welkin with clarion calls, and Zeus heard the tumult."
[Footnote: From Homer's Iliad, XXI, verse 388.]
It was brought about in the following way:
Maesa, the sister of Julia Augusta, had two daughters, Soaemias and
Mammaea, by her husband Julius, an ex-consul. She had also two male
grandchildren. One was Avitus, the child of Soaemias and Varius
Marcellus, a man of the same race,--he was from Apamea,--who had been
occupied in procuratorships, had been enrolled in the senate, and soon
after died. The other was Bassianus, the child of Mammaea and Gessius
Marcianus, who was himself also a Syrian, from a city called Arca, and
had been assigned to various positions as procurator. Now Maesa at home
in Emesa her life [lacuna] her sister Julia, with whom she had made her
abode during the entire period of the latter's reign, having perished.
For Avitus, after governing in Asia, sent by Caracalla from Mesopotamia
into Cyprus, was seen to be limited to the position of adviser to some
magistrate who suffered from old age and sickness; and again [lacuna]
him, when [lacuna] he died, one Eutychianus, that had given satisfaction
in games and exercises, and for that reason [lacuna] who [lacuna]
[Sidenote:--31--] [lacuna] upon [lacuna] becoming aware of the strong
dislike of the soldiers for Macrinus [lacuna] wall [lacuna] and partly
persuaded by the Sun, whom they name Elagabalus and worship devotedly,
and by some other prophecies, he undertook to overthrow Macrinus and put
up Avitus, the grandson of Maesa and a mere child, as emperor in his
stead. And he accomplished both projects, although he had himself as yet
not fully reached manhood and had as helpers only a few freedmen and
soldiers [lacuna] and Emesenian senators [lacuna] pretending that he was
a natural son of Tarautas and arraying him in clothing which the latter
had worn when a child, Caesar by the [lacunae] introduced into the camp at
night, without the knowledge of his mother or his grandmother, and at
dawn on the sixteenth of May he persuaded the soldiers, who were eager
to get some starting-point for an uprising, to revolt. Julianus, the
prefect, learning this (for he happened to be not far distant), caused
both a daughter and a son-in-law of Marcianus, together with some
others, to be assassinated. Then, after collecting as many of the
soldiers remaining as he could in the short time at his disposal, he
made an attack upon what was, to all intents and purposes, a most
hostile fortress. [Sidenote:--32--] He might have taken it that very
day, for the Moors sent to Tarautas according to the terms of alliance
fought most valiantly for Macrinus, who was a countryman of theirs, and
even broke through some of the gates. But he refused the opportunity,
either because he was afraid to rush in or because he expected that he
could win the men inside to surrender voluntarily. As no propositions
were made to him, and they furthermore built up all the gates during the
night, so that they were now in a securer position, he again assaulted
the place but effected nothing. For they carried Avitus (whom they were
already saluting as "Marcus Aurelius Antoninus") all about upon the
ramparts, and exhibited some likeness of Caracalla when a child as
bearing some resemblance to their new ruler, declaring that the latter
was truly Caracalla's child and his proper successor in the imperial
office. "Why do you do this, fellow-soldiers?" they exclaimed. "Why do
you thus fight against your benefactor's son?" By this means they
corrupted all the soldiers with Julianus, especially as the troops were
anxious to have a change, so that the attackers killed their commanders,
save Julianus (for he effected his escape), and surrendered themselves
to the False Antoninus. For when an attempt to restrain them was made by
their centurions and the other subordinates, and they were, as a result,
hesitating, Eutychianus sent Festus (thus--according to the cubicularius