Page:The Amazing Emperor Heliogabalus.djvu/217

 The incident of the latrinae, mentioned by Lampridius, suggests a murder similar in circumstance to that of Caracalla. What would have been easier than for one of Mamaea's party to seize the boy, alone and unprotected in the latrinae? The Emperor once gone, the obvious thing would be for the conspirators to remove as quickly as possible all those persons who might make things difficult for his successor. Of these, Soaemias would certainly be the most troublesome. Hot and passionate, devoted to her son and to his memory, if she had lived, Rome would have resounded with the noise of the crime. It was obviously necessary to close her mouth with expedition. Why Eutychianus did not suffer the same fate is quite incomprehensible. The only theory that has been suggested is that neither Maesa nor Mamaea felt themselves capable of undertaking the whole administration alone; they felt that they must have at least one man who knew the ropes at their back.

To account for the treatment of Antonine's body at the hands of the mob is certainly difficult. We know that he had done nothing which could have rendered him obnoxious to the populace. To ascribe it to intolerance of his psychopathic condition shows, not only ignorance of Roman susceptibilities, but also a foolish ante-dating of popular prejudice. We certainly have no record of this Emperor's sepulchre; and to dismiss as mere fable the one point on which the authors all agree is equally impossible. The probable solution lies in the fact that Mamaea's money, which had caused the