and the tardy restitution of
military pay and privileges was imputed to the acknowledged weakness of
Macrinus. At length he marched out of Antioch, to meet the increasing
and zealous army of the young pretender. His own troops seemed to take
the field with faintness and reluctance; but, in the heat of the battle,
[49] the Praetorian guards, almost by an involuntary impulse, asserted
the superiority of their valor and discipline. The rebel ranks were
broken; when the mother and grandmother of the Syrian prince, who,
according to their eastern custom, had attended the army, threw
themselves from their covered chariots, and, by exciting the compassion
of the soldiers, endeavored to animate their drooping courage. Antoninus
himself, who, in the rest of his life, never acted like a man, in this
important crisis of his fate, approved himself a hero, mounted his
horse, and, at the head of his rallied troops, charged sword in hand
among the thickest of the enemy; whilst the eunuch Gannys, [491] whose
occupations had been confined to female cares and the soft luxury of
Asia, displayed the talents of an able and experienced general. The
battle still raged with doubtful violence, and Macrinus might have
obtained the victory, had he not betrayed his own cause by a shameful
and precipitate flight. His cowardice served only to protract his life a
few days, and to stamp deserved ignominy on his misfortunes. It is
scarcely necessary to add, that his son Diadumenianus was involved in
the same fate.

As soon as the stubborn Praetorians could be convinced that they fought
for a prince who had basely deserted them, they surrendered to the
conqueror: the contending parties of the Roman army, mingling tears
of joy and tenderness, united under the banners of the imagined son of
Caracalla, and the East acknowledged with pleasure the first emperor of
Asiatic extraction.

[Footnote 48: By a most dangerous proclamation of the pretended
Antoninus, every soldier who brought in his officer's head became
entitled to his private estate, as well as to his military commission.]

[Footnote 49: Dion, l. lxxviii. p. 1345. Herodian, l. v. p. 186.
The battle was fought near the village of Immae, about two-and-twenty
miles from Antioch.]

[Footnote 491: Gannys was not a eunuch. Dion, p. 1355.--W]

The letters of Macrinus had condescended to inform the senate of the
slight disturbance occasioned by an impostor in Syria, and a decree
immediately passed,