ssius, l. lxxx. p. 1369.]

[Footnote 77: Julius Caesar had appeased a sedition with the same word,
Quirites; which, thus opposed to soldiers, was used in a sense of
contempt, and reduced the offenders to the less honorable condition of
mere citizens. Tacit. Annal. i. 43.]

[Footnote 78: Hist. August. p. 132.]

The resolutions of the multitude generally depend on a moment; and the
caprice of passion might equally determine the seditious legion to
lay down their arms at the emperor's feet, or to plunge them into his
breast. Perhaps, if this singular transaction had been investigated by
the penetration of a philosopher, we should discover the secret causes
which on that occasion authorized the boldness of the prince, and
commanded the obedience of the troops; and perhaps, if it had been
related by a judicious historian, we should find this action, worthy
of Caesar himself, reduced nearer to the level of probability and the
common standard of the character of Alexander Severus. The abilities of
that amiable prince seem to have been inadequate to the difficulties of
his situation, the firmness of his conduct inferior to the purity of his
intentions. His virtues, as well as the vices of Elagabalus, contracted
a tincture of weakness and effeminacy from the soft climate of Syria,
of which he was a native; though he blushed at his foreign origin, and
listened with a vain complacency to the flattering genealogists, who
derived his race from the ancient stock of Roman nobility. [79] The pride
and avarice of his mother cast a shade on the glories of his reign; an
by exacting from his riper years the same dutiful obedience which she
had justly claimed from his unexperienced youth, Mamaea exposed to
public ridicule both her son's character and her own. [80] The fatigues
of the Persian war irritated the military discontent; the unsuccessful
event [801] degraded the reputation of the emperor as a general, and even
as a soldier. Every cause prepared, and every circumstance hastened,
a revolution, which distracted the Roman empire with a long series of
intestine calamities.

[Footnote 79: From the Metelli. Hist. August. p. 119. The choice was
judicious. In one short period of twelve years, the Metelli could reckon
seven consulships and five triumphs. See Velleius Paterculus, ii. 11,
and the Fasti.]

[Footnote 80: The life of Alexander, in the Augustan History, is the
mere idea of a perfect prince, an awkward imitation of the Cyropae