Page:The Amazing Emperor Heliogabalus.djvu/108

 cords, then, taking Julian's own signet, he sealed the bundle carefully and sent it by the hands of a trusty and cunning soldier. "From the victorious Praefect Julian to his august Emperor, with greeting. The head and source of our offence, according to the commandment." Judge of the fright and disgust which arose in the breast of that Moor on discovering, when the bundle was opened, not the features of his despised enemy, but the death-mask of his trusty and well-beloved lieutenant, the man who had saved him from Caracalla's vengeance at the outset of his own plot. Merely that, and no further news to hand, because the bearer of the tidings had departed without waiting for a reward. Bit by bit the news trickled through : at least four legions had deserted, and, greatest blow of all, the very Moors in whom he had trusted. The hated Antonine was triumphant and in the ascendant. It was enough to wake even the comatose parody of the great Marcus Aurelius. After waiting to recover his senses, he took to his heels and ran — discretion being the better part of valour — not, however, as Herodian suggests, with characteristic untruth, towards Emesa, but back to Antioch, as Dion discreetly remarks, with Bassianus and his paltry, though rapidly augmenting, forces soon to follow. The boy and idiot was ready to fight the Praetorian Guards, ready even to face the brunt of opposition from the conciliated legion at Apamea if necessary.

Bassianus' army must have been enthusiastically loyal and keen. It was a motley crew of men, with