[Sidenote:—­16—­] These things [lacuna] in regard to him [lacuna] have been said by me [lacuna] in detail [lacuna] of any [lacuna] just as [lacuna] nominally throughout his entire reign [lacuna] of all [lacuna] of it [lacuna] that he said in conversation with the soldiers [lacuna] it was proved [lacuna] and he dared to utter not a few laudations of himself and to send still more of them in letters, saying among other things:  “I have been quite sure that you also would agree with the legions, since I enjoy the consciousness of having conferred many benefits upon the commonwealth.”  He subscribed himself in the letter as Caesar and emperor and Severus, adding to the name of Macrinus the titles of Pious, and Fortunate, and Augustus, and Proconsul, of course without awaiting any vote on our part.  He sent the letter without being ignorant that he was, on his own responsibility, assuming so many and great designations nor [lacuna] name [lacuna] of Pretorians as formerly some [lacuna] not but what [lacuna] so wrote [lacuna] in the beginning [lacuna] war chiefly [lacuna] of barbarians [lacuna] near [lacuna] in the letter he used simply the same terms as the emperors before Caracalla, and this he did the whole year through [lacuna] memoranda found among the soldiers.  Thus [lacuna] of things accustomed to be said with a view to flattery and not inspired by truthfulness they became so suspicious as to ask that they be made public, and he sent them to us, and the quaestor read them aloud, as he did other similar documents in their turn.  And a certain praetor, as the senate was then in session and none of the quaestors was present, also read an epistle once composed by Macrinus himself.

[Sidenote:—­17—­] The first letter having been read, appropriate measures were passed with reference to both Macrinus and his son.  He was designated Patrician, and Princeps Iuventutis, and Caesar.  He accepted everything save the horse-race voted in honor of the beginning of his reign; from this he begged to be excused, saying that the event had been sufficiently honored by the spectacle on the birthday of Severus.  Of Tarautas he made no mention at this time, in the way of either honor or dishonor, save only that he called him Emperor.  He ventured to term him neither Hero nor Foe, and, as I conjecture, it was because the deeds of his predecessor and the hatred of much of mankind made him shrink from the former epithet, and the thought of the soldiers restrained him from the latter.  Some suspected that it was because he wanted the disgracing to be the act of the senate and the people rather than his own, especially since he was in the midst of the legions.  He did say that Tarautas by his wrongdoing had been chiefly responsible for the war and had terribly burdened the public treasury by increasing the money given to the barbarians, inasmuch as it was of equal amount with the pay of the soldiers under arms.  No one dared, however, to give utterance publicly to any such statement against him and vote that he was an enemy, for fear of immediate annihilation at the hands of the soldiers in the City.  Still, they abused him in their own fashion and heaped insults upon him as much as they could, going over the list of his bloody deeds, with the name of each victim, and ranging him alongside all the evil tyrants that had ever held sway over them.