he justice of whose decree has been ratified by
posterity. [62]

[See Island In The Tiber: Elagabalus was thrown into the Tiber]

[Footnote 62: The aera of the death of Elagabalus, and of the accession
of Alexander, has employed the learning and ingenuity of Pagi,
Tillemont, Valsecchi, Vignoli, and Torre, bishop of Adria. The question
is most assuredly intricate; but I still adhere to the authority of
Dion, the truth of whose calculations is undeniable, and the purity of
whose text is justified by the agreement of Xiphilin, Zonaras, and
Cedrenus. Elagabalus reigned three years nine months and four days, from
his victory over Macrinus, and was killed March 10, 222. But what shall
we reply to the medals, undoubtedly genuine, which reckon the fifth year
of his tribunitian power? We shall reply, with the learned Valsecchi,
that the usurpation of Macrinus was annihilated, and that the son of
Caracalla dated his reign from his father's death? After resolving this
great difficulty, the smaller knots of this question may be easily
untied, or cut asunder. Note: This opinion of Valsecchi has been
triumphantly contested by Eckhel, who has shown the impossibility of
reconciling it with the medals of Elagabalus, and has given the most
satisfactory explanation of the five tribunates of that emperor. He
ascended the throne and received the tribunitian power the 16th of May,
in the year of Rome 971; and on the 1st January of the next year, 972,
he began a new tribunate, according to the custom established by
preceding emperors. During the years 972, 973, 974, he enjoyed the
tribunate, and commenced his fifth in the year 975, during which he was
killed on the 10th March. Eckhel de Doct. Num. viii. 430 &c.--G.]

In the room of Elagabalus, his cousin Alexander was raised to the throne by the
Praetorian guards. His relation to the family of Severus, whose name
he assumed, was the same as that of his predecessor; his virtue and his
danger had already endeared him to the Romans, and the eager liberality
of the senate conferred upon him, in one day, the various titles and
powers of the Imperial dignity. [63] But as Alexander was a modest and
dutiful youth, of only seventeen years of age, the reins of government
were in the hands of two women, of his mother, Mamaea, and of Maesa,
his grandmother. After the death of the latter, who survived but a short
time the elevation of Alexander, Mamaea remained the sole regent of
her son and of the em