Having passed the winter here he proceeded into Italy through Thrace and Moesia and both the Pannonias, and there he abode to the end of his life.  One action of his was worthy of a thoroughly good emperor:  for, whereas many individuals and communities alike,

  including the Romans themselves,
  both knights and senators,

had privately and publicly, by word and deed, heaped insults upon [both Caracalla and] himself as a result of the letters of Macrinus, he [neither threatened to make reprisals] in the case of a single person, nor did he make reprisals.  But on the other hand he drifted into all the most obscene and lawless and bloodthirsty practices. [Some of them never before known in Rome, took root and grew like ancestral institutions.  Others, taken up tentatively from one time [Footnote:  Reading [Greek:  allote] (Bekker, Dindorf) in place of [Greek:  alla te].] to another by various individuals] flourished for the three years and nine months and four days during which he ruled (to compute from the battle in which he gained supreme control). [In Syria, he caused the assassination of Nestor and Fabius Agrippinus, the governor of the country, as well as of the foremost knights belonging to the party of Macrinus; but he inflicted a similar fate upon men in Rome who were on most friendly terms with him.  In Arabia, he executed Pica Caesianus, [Footnote:  P.  Numicius Pica Caesianus.] entrusted with the administration, because he had not immediately declared his allegiance; and, in Cyprus, Claudius Attalus, because he had fallen out with Comazon.  Attalus had once been governor of Thrace, had been expelled from the senate by Severus in the war with Niger, but was restored to it by Tarautas, and had at this time been assigned to Cyprus, as the lot directed.  He had incurred Comazon’s ill-will by having formerly reduced him to the position of rower in a trireme as a punishment for some villany which the latter committed while serving in Thrace.]

[Sidenote:—­4—­] This incident sheds some light on the character of Comazon, who got this name from mimes and buffoonery. [Footnote:  This statement is an error on the part of Xiphilinus, who thought that “Comazon” (in Greek=The Reveler) was a nickname for a certain Eutychianus.  Investigations, however, show that there was a M. Valerius Comazon prominent at this time and that the word should be taken as a proper and not as a vulgar noun.] He commanded the Pretorians and, though holding no position of management or superintendence whatever, except over the camp, [he obtained the consular honors] and subsequently actually became consul. [Also he became city prefect] not merely once, but twice and thrice, as could be recorded in no other case.  Wherefore this, too, must be enumerated among the most illegal proceedings. [It was on his account, then, that Attalus was put to death.