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 of comprehending, and can only malign with a vitriolic vehemence worthy of a better cause. His very vehemence is fortunate, since it has left the way open for psychology and science to proclaim the abuse, what we now know it to be, both malicious and untruthful.

The evidences from the jurisprudence of the reign are certainly unsatisfactory. Later codifications have left us with but few dated laws of a reign that stands in the golden age of Roman jurisprudence. Ulpian, Papinian, and Paul were not men to allow a break in the order of legal succession, and though Ulpian was presumably banished in connection with Alexander, it was not until within a few months of Elagabalus' death. Sufficient remains to show us that the Empire suffered no break in the perfect autonomy of jurisprudence, justice, and government, throughout a period which Forquet de Dome has dignified under the pseudonym of the reign of military anarchy.

Cohen and Eckhel are of great importance in fixing, as nearly as possible, the chronology of the period, by their records of the medals and coins of the reign. The same may be said of the inscriptions which have escaped the vandalism of the Emperor's enemies. Duruy, in his great history, is unwilling to give the medals much biographical weight, comparing them to the governmental journals of all times, which give only the account of events as seen through official spectacles, and on which as little reliance can be placed as on the