Next he abolished the spectacles and the public messes of the Alexandrians and ordered Alexandria to be broken up [Footnote:  The reading is [Greek:  dioikisthaenai].] into villages, with a wall fully garrisoned bisecting the city, that the inhabitants might no longer visit one another with security.  Such was the treatment accorded unhappy Alexandria by the Ausonian Beast, as the tag of the oracle about him called him; and he said he liked the title and was glad to be distinguished by the honorific appellation of “Beast.”  Never mind how many persons he murdered on the pretext that they had fulfilled the oracle.

[Sidenote:—­24—­] [The same man gave prizes to the soldiers for their campaign, allowing those stationed in the pretorian guard to get some six thousand two hundred and fifty [Footnote:  The common reading is “twelve hundred and fifty,” but since it seems incredible that the Pretorians should have obtained less, instead of more, than the ordinary soldiers, Lange with much reason proposed the change carried out above,—­a change which requires the insertion (or restitution) of but one Greek numeral-letter that might easily have been overlooked by some copyist.] and the rest five thousand [lacuna]

[That model of temperance (as he was wont to put it), the rebuker of licentiousness in others, at the consummation of a most vile and at the same time most dangerous outrage, appeared, in truth, to be indignant; but by not giving that indignation sufficient free play and further by allowing the youths to do what no one had ever yet dared to propose, he greatly corrupted the latter, who had imitated the habits of women of the demi-monde and of professional male buffoons.]

[On the occasion of the Culenian [Footnote:  Nobody knows what the Culenian games were; Valois guesses that they may have been an Alexandrian festival.  The text of this whole chapter is in a very ragged condition, and should not be held too strictly accountable in the matter of sense or cohesion.] spectacle severe censure was passed, not only upon those who there carried on their accustomed pursuits, but also upon the spectators.]

DIO’S ROMAN HISTORY

78

Antoninus’s treacherous campaign against Artabanus, the Parthian (chapters 1-3).

Antoninus’s death (chapters 4-6).  Foreshadowings of his death, and the abuse heaped upon him dead (chapters 7-10).

About Macrinus Augustus, and his excellencies and faults (chapters 11-15).

His letters and commands to the senate, and other official acts (chapters 16-22).

Death of Julia Augusta (chapters 23, 24).

Inauspicious signs:  peace arranged with Artabanus after submitting to a defeat (chapters 25-27).

Uprising of the soldiers:  Pseudantoninus is proclaimed as emperor by the soldiers (chapters 28-31).

How Macrinus, conquered in battle, took to flight and was cut down after the capture of his son (chapters 32-41).