Page:The Amazing Emperor Heliogabalus.djvu/14

 The fiscal policy may have been unchanged, but the edict which enforced the payment of Vectigalia in gold, showed a considerable amount of sense, in demanding the payment of taxes in the one coin whose standard had been maintained when all others had been debased by preceding Emperors, and no one had been worse than the great financier Septimius Severus in this debasing of the currency.

In legal matters alone we are told that the period was sterile, because only five decrees of the reign are recorded by the editors of the Prosopographia. This may be true, but it is quite possible, in fact much more than probable, that in later redactions much of the work which Papinian, Paul, Ulpian, and other such produced during his reign has been embodied in later decrees or codifications, and one can scarcely imagine that these men were entirely sterile for four years in the zenith of their authority.

Again, it is most noticeable that in the mass of abuse and obvious animus which the "life" exhibits, there is not one definite act of cruelty reported; no wanton murder is cited; no hint given that the people were discontented with the appointments made, or that they suffered from any of the misrule which had been so prevalent for years past. On the other hand, we are told that the people considered Elagabalus a worthy Emperor, despite all that could be said to his discredit.

Chiefly it was this too obvious animus, shown on each page of the documents, which led the writer to