a man held in no honor].  Ascertaining there that his son had also been captured [(Claudius Pollio, the centurion of the legion, had arrested him while driving through Zeugma, where, in the course of a previous journey, he had been designated Caesar)], he threw himself from the conveyance (for he had not been bound) and at the time suffered a fracture of his shoulder; but subsequently (though not a great deal later) being sentenced to die before entering Antioch, he was slain by Marcianus Taurus, a centurion, and his body remained unburied until the False Antoninus could come from Syria into Bithynia and gloat over it.

[Sidenote:—­40—­] So Macrinus, when an old man,—­for he was fifty-four years of age [lacking three or five days],—­and eminent in experience of affairs, displaying some degree of excellence and commanding so many legions, was overthrown by a mere child of whose very name he had previously been ignorant,—­even as the oracle had foretold to him; [[lacuna]] for upon his applying [to Zeus Belus] it had answered him: 

  “Old man, verily warriors young harass and exhaust thee: 
  Utterly spent is thy strength, and a grievious eld comes upon thee!”
  [Footnote:  From Homer’s Iliad, VIII, verses 102-103.]

And fleeing [lacuna] or [lacuna], having played part of runaway slave through the provinces which he had ruled, arrested like some robber by common officers, beholding himself with villains most dishonored [lacuna] guarded before whom often many senators had been brought; and his death was ordered who had the authority to punish or to release any Roman whomsoever, and he was arrested and beheaded by centurions, when he had authority to put to death both them and others, inferior and superior.  And his son likewise perished.

[Sidenote:—­41—­] This proves that no one, even of those whose foundations seem unshakable, is sure of his position, but the exceeding prosperous, equally with the rest, are poised in the balance.

And this man would have been lauded beyond all mankind, if he had not himself desired to become emperor, but had chosen some person enrolled in the senate to stand at the head of the Roman empire and had appointed him emperor; and only in this way could he have avoided blame for the plot against Caracalla, for by such action he would have demonstrated that he resorted to it to secure his own safety and not on account of a desire for supremacy.  Whereas, instead, he got himself into disrepute and ruined his career, becoming subject to reproach, and finally falling a victim to a disaster that he richly deserved.  And having grasped at sole sovereignty before he had even the title of senator, he lost it very quickly and in the most disappointing way.  He had ruled only a year and two months, lacking three days (a result obtained by reckoning to the date of the battle).

DIO’S ROMAN HISTORY

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