mpire whose unity had hitherto remained inviolate.

Had the treaty been carried into execution, the sovereign of Europe
might soon have been the conqueror of Asia; but Caracalla obtained
an easier, though a more guilty, victory. He artfully listened to his
mother's entreaties, and consented to meet his brother in her
apartment, on terms of peace and reconciliation. In the midst of their
conversation, some centurions, who had contrived to conceal themselves,
rushed with drawn swords upon the unfortunate Geta. His distracted
mother strove to protect him in her arms; but, in the unavailing
struggle, she was wounded in the hand, and covered with the blood of her
younger son, while she saw the elder animating and assisting the fury
of the assassins. As soon as the deed was perpetrated, Caracalla, with
hasty steps, and horror in his countenance, ran towards the Praetorian
camp, as his only refuge, and threw himself on the ground before the
statues of the tutelar deities. The soldiers attempted to raise and
comfort him. In broken and disordered words he informed them of his
imminent danger, and fortunate escape; insinuating that he had prevented
the designs of his enemy, and declared his resolution to live and die
with his faithful troops. Geta had been the favorite of the soldiers;
but complaint was useless, revenge was dangerous, and they still
reverenced the son of Severus. Their discontent died away in idle
murmurs, and Caracalla soon convinced them of the justice of his cause,
by distributing in one lavish donative the accumulated treasures of
his father's reign. The real sentiments of the soldiers alone were
of importance to his power or safety. Their declaration in his favor
commanded the dutiful professions of the senate. The obsequious
assembly was always prepared to ratify the decision of fortune; * but
as Caracalla wished to assuage the first emotions of public indignation,
the name of Geta was mentioned with decency, and he received the funeral
honors of a Roman emperor. Posterity, in pity to his misfortune,
has cast a veil over his vices. We consider that young prince as the
innocent victim of his brother's ambition, without recollecting that he
himself wanted power, rather than inclination, to consummate the same
attempts of revenge and murder.

The crime went not unpunished. Neither business, nor pleasure, nor
flattery, could defend Caracalla from the stings of a guilty conscience;
and he confessed, in the angu