The emperor received the letters
from Rome; and as he was then engaged in the conduct of a chariot race,
he delivered them unopened to the Praetorian Praefect, directing him to
despatch the ordinary affairs, and to report the more important business
that might be contained in them. Macrinus read his fate, and resolved to
prevent it. He inflamed the discontents of some inferior officers,
and employed the hand of Martialis, a desperate soldier, who had been
refused the rank of centurion. The devotion of Caracalla prompted him
to make a pilgrimage from Edessa to the celebrated temple of the Moon at
Carrhae. [381] He was attended by a body of cavalry: but having stopped on
the road for some necessary occasion, his guards preserved a respectful
distance, and Martialis, approaching his person under a presence of
duty, stabbed him with a dagger. The bold assassin was instantly killed
by a Scythian archer of the Imperial guard. Such was the end of a
monster whose life disgraced human nature, and whose reign accused the
patience of the Romans. [39] The grateful soldiers forgot his vices,
remembered only his partial liberality, and obliged the senate to
prostitute their own dignity and that of religion, by granting him a
place among the gods. Whilst he was upon earth, Alexander the Great was
the only hero whom this god deemed worthy his admiration. He assumed the
name and ensigns of Alexander, formed a Macedonian phalanx of guards,
persecuted the disciples of Aristotle, and displayed, with a puerile
enthusiasm, the only sentiment by which he discovered any regard for
virtue or glory. We can easily conceive, that after the battle of Narva,
and the conquest of Poland, Charles XII. (though he still wanted the
more elegant accomplishments of the son of Philip) might boast of having
rivalled his valor and magnanimity; but in no one action of his life
did Caracalla express the faintest resemblance of the Macedonian hero,
except in the murder of a great number of his own and of his father's
friends. [40]

[Footnote 381: Carrhae, now Harran, between Edessan and Nisibis, famous
for the defeat of Crassus--the Haran from whence Abraham set out for the
land of Canaan. This city has always been remarkable for its attachment
to Sabaism--G]

[Footnote 39: Dion, l. lxxviii. p. 1312. Herodian, l. iv. p. 168.]

[Footnote 40: The fondness of Caracalla for the name and ensigns
of Alexander is still preserved on the medals of that emperor. See
Sp