Page:The Amazing Emperor Heliogabalus.djvu/285

, his amnesty to the Senate and to Rome, for their participation in the usurpation of Macrinus and his son, was scrupulously kept. In religious matters—his special domain—no one can say that he was apathetic, and yet there is no instance of persecution recorded, even by Fathers of the Church. His whole life was devoted to the introduction of a fantastic eastern monotheism, designed to extinguish the polytheistic atheism which permeated Roman society. Undoubtedly opposition and bitterness would have been raised if the Emperor had not shown a moderation foreign to his years, unless he had exercised a restraining influence over a mob which was still thirsting for the blood of the Judaisers, as later records demonstrate. In one particular, however, we are told that Elagabalus was fierce, namely, in the contradiction of his pleasures, none of which can in fairness be said to have affected the outside world. He might have been led; certainly he could not be driven; what Antonine could? His tutor Gannys found this out too late, and suffered for his mistake.

With a singular lack of consistency, Lampridius ascribes all Elagabalus' moderation to his grandmother Maesa, all his excesses to his own fault, whereas psychologists can demonstrate from a mass of similar cases that both his virtues and excesses are those usually exhibited by one of his temperament, and at any rate his relations were responsible for his lack of early training and non-association with sane, healthy-minded persons.

Undoubtedly Maesa's influence, in the executive