e and dissimulation. Epagathus, the
principal leader of the mutiny, was removed from Rome, by the honorable
employment of praefect of Egypt: from that high rank he was gently
degraded to the government of Crete; and when at length, his popularity
among the guards was effaced by time and absence, Alexander ventured to
inflict the tardy but deserved punishment of his crimes. Under the reign
of a just and virtuous prince, the tyranny of the army threatened with
instant death his most faithful ministers, who were suspected of an
intention to correct their intolerable disorders. The historian Dion
Cassius had commanded the Pannonian legions with the spirit of ancient
discipline. Their brethren of Rome, embracing the common cause of
military license, demanded the head of the reformer. Alexander, however,
instead of yielding to their seditious clamors, showed a just sense
of his merit and services, by appointing him his colleague in the
consulship, and defraying from his own treasury the expense of that vain
dignity: but as was justly apprehended, that if the soldiers beheld him
with the ensigns of his office, they would revenge the insult in
his blood, the nominal first magistrate of the state retired, by the
emperor's advice, from the city, and spent the greatest part of his
consulship at his villas in Campania.

Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation Of
Marcinus.--Part IV.

The lenity of the emperor confirmed the insolence of the troops;
the legions imitated the example of the guards, and defended their
prerogative of licentiousness with the same furious obstinacy. The
administration of Alexander was an unavailing struggle against the
corruption of his age. In llyricum, in Mauritania, in Armenia, in
Mesopotamia, in Germany, fresh mutinies perpetually broke out; his
officers were murdered, his authority was insulted, and his life at last
sacrificed to the fierce discontents of the army. One particular fact
well deserves to be recorded, as it illustrates the manners of the
troops, and exhibits a singular instance of their return to a sense of
duty and obedience. Whilst the emperor lay at Antioch, in his Persian
expedition, the particulars of which we shall hereafter relate, the
punishment of some soldiers, who had been discovered in the baths
of women, excited a sedition in the legion to which they belonged.
Alexander ascended his tribunal, and with a modest firmness represented
to the armed mult