fect of the city, a
charioteer praefect of the watch, a barber praefect of the provisions.
These three ministers, with many inferior officers, were all recommended
enormitate membrorum. Hist. August. p. 105.]

It may seem probable, the vices and follies of Elagabalus have been
adorned by fancy, and blackened by prejudice. [60] Yet, confining
ourselves to the public scenes displayed before the Roman people, and
attested by grave and contemporary historians, their inexpressible
infamy surpasses that of any other age or country. The license of an
eastern monarch is secluded from the eye of curiosity by the
inaccessible walls of his seraglio. The sentiments of honor and
gallantry have introduced a refinement of pleasure, a regard for
decency, and a respect for the public opinion, into the modern courts of
Europe; [601] but the corrupt and opulent nobles of Rome gratified every
vice that could be collected from the mighty conflux of nations and
manners. Secure of impunity, careless of censure, they lived without
restraint in the patient and humble society of their slaves and
parasites. The emperor, in his turn, viewing every rank of his subjects
with the same contemptuous indifference, asserted without control his
sovereign privilege of lust and luxury.

[Footnote 60: Even the credulous compiler of his life, in the Augustan
History (p. 111) is inclined to suspect that his vices may have been
exaggerated.]

[Footnote 601: Wenck has justly observed that Gibbon should have
reckoned the influence of Christianity in this great change. In the most
savage times, and the most corrupt courts, since the introduction of
Christianity there have been no Neros or Domitians, no Commodus or
Elagabalus.--M.]

The most worthless of mankind are not afraid to condemn
in others the same disorders which they allow in themselves; and can
readily discover some nice difference of age, character, or station, to
justify the partial distinction. The licentious soldiers, who had
raised to the throne the dissolute son of Caracalla, blushed at their
ignominious choice, and turned with disgust from that monster, to
contemplate with pleasure the opening virtues of his cousin Alexander,
the son of Mamaea. The crafty Maesa, sensible that her grandson
Elagabalus must inevitably destroy himself by his own vices, had
provided another and surer support of her family. Embracing a favorable
moment of fondness and devotion, she had persuaded the young emperor t