re were libations too, and as the
day was practically the wedding of East and West, there was not a
weapon to be seen--gala robes merely, brilliant and long. Caracalla
saluted the king, gave an order to an adjutant, and on the smiling
defenceless Parthians the Roman eagles pounced. Those who were not
killed were made prisoners of war. The next day Caracalla withdrew,
charged with booty, firing cities as he went.

A little before, rumor reached him that a group of the citizens of
Alexandria had referred to him as a fratricide. After the adventure in
Parthia he bethought him of the city which Alexander had founded, and
of the temple of Serapis that was there. He wished to honor both, he
declared, and presently he was at the gates. The people were enchanted;
the avenues were strewn with flowers, lined with musicians. There were
illuminations, festivals, sacrifices, torrents of perfumes, and through
it all Caracalla passed, a legion at his heels. To see him, to
participate in the succession of prodigalities, the surrounding country
flocked there too. In recognition of the courtesy with which he was
received, Caracalla gave a banquet to the magnates and the clergy.
Before his guests could leave him they were killed. Through the streets
the legion was at work. Alexandria was turned into a cemetery. Herodian
states that the carnage was so great that the Nile was red to its mouth.

In Rome at that time was a prefect, Macrin by name, who had dreamed the
purple would be his. He was a swarthy liar, and his promises were such
that the pretorians were willing that the dream should come true.
Emissaries were despatched, and Caracalla was stabbed. In his luggage
poison was found to the value of five million five hundred thousand
drachmae. What fresh turpitude he was devising no one knew, and the
discovery might serve as an epitaph, were it not that by his legions he
was adored. No one had abandoned to the army such booty as he.

Meanwhile, in a chapel at Emissa, a boy was dancing indolently to the
kiss of flutes. A handful of Caracalla's soldiers passed that way, and
thought him Bacchus. In his face was the enigmatic beauty of gods and
girls--the charm of the dissolute and the wayward heightened by the
divine. On his head was a diadem; his frail tunic was of purple and
gold, but the sleeves, after the Phoenician fashion, were wide, and he
was shod with a thin white leather that reached to the thighs. He was
fourteen, and priest of t