a delay and the despatch to his rival came to the attention of the latter in good season.  Now Macrinus, becoming afraid that he might be put to death by Antoninus on account of all this, especially since a certain Egyptian Serapio had told the prince to his face that Macrinus should succeed him, did not find it well to delay.—­Serapio had first been thrown to a lion for his pains, but when he merely held out his hand, as is reported, and the animal did not touch him, he was slain.  He might have escaped even this fate (or so he declared) by calling upon certain spirits, if he had lived one day longer.

[Sidenote:—­5—­] Macrinus came to no harm but hastened his preparations, having a presentiment that otherwise he should perish, especially since Antoninus had suddenly, one day before [Footnote:  “One day before” is a conjecture of Bekker’s. (The birthday of Antoninus seems to have been on the sixth of April.)] his birthday, removed those of Macrinus’s companions that were in the latter’s company, alleging one reason in one case and another in another with the general pretext of doing them honor.  Not but [lacuna] expecting that it was fated for him to get it he had also made a name which owed its origin to this fact.  Accordingly, he suborned two tribunes stationed in the pretorian guard, Nemesianus and Apollinarius, brothers belonging to the Aurelian gens, and Julius Martialius, who was enrolled among the evocati and had a private grudge against Antoninus for not giving him the post of centurion on request.  Thus he made his plot, and it was carried out as follows.  On the eighth of April, when the emperor had set out from Edessa to Carrhae and had dismounted from his horse to go and ease himself, Martialius approached as if he wanted to say something to him and struck him smartly with a small knife.  The assassin at once fled and would have escaped detection, had he thrown away the sword.  The weapon led to his being recognized by one of the Scythians on the staff of Antoninus, and he was brought down with a javelin.  As for Martialius [lacuna] the military tribunes pretending to come to the rescue slew [lacuna]

[This Scythian attended him, not merely to be an ally of his, but as keeping guard over him to a certain extent. [Sidenote:—­6—­] For he maintained Scythians and Celtae about him, free and slaves alike, whom he had taken away from children and wives and had equipped with arms; and he affected to place more dependence upon them than upon the soldiers.  To illustrate, he kept honoring them with posts as centurions, and he called them “lions.”  Moreover, he would often converse with emissaries sent from the very provinces, and in the presence of no one else but the interpreters would urge them, in case any catastrophe befell him, to invade Italy and march upon Rome, assuring them that it was very easy to capture.  And to prevent any inkling of his talk spreading to our ears he would immediately put to death the interpreters.  For all that, we