Page:The Amazing Emperor Heliogabalus.djvu/78

 the young Emperors of old Rome balanced themselves — a peak with a precipice on either side.

First, there is the Empress Julia Domna Pia, clever, witty, sagacious, and beautiful.

Then her sister, Julia Maesa, Sanctissima, — for so her religiosity is described — the widow of Julius Avitus, wealthy, hard, crafty, and domineering, but a woman with a policy and limitless determination, as her later history shows. Then her two daughters —

(1) Julia Soaemias Bassiana, the wife of Varius Marcellus, beautiful, voluptuous, religious, neurotic, the mother of Elagabalus, a woman with few, if any, political aspirations, tendencies, or abilities.

(2) Julia Mamaea, the upright (except when other things paid better), classic, cold, calculating, philosophic, mildly interested in Christianity, and devoted to the interests of her own family. Finally, the two successive Emperors, their sons, Varius Avitus Bassianus, the impulsive, affectionate, headstrong child of about thirteen years, with all his mother's hereditary sexuality, neurotic religion, and love of life ; and Alexianus, a child of approximately nine, Mamaea's son, and bearing her reputation, of whom more at a later time.

Let us follow in outline the actions and movements of this family from the death of the Emperor Antoninus Caracalla to the inception of the movement which placed his, at least reputed, son in his place.

Without doubt the family had lived securely and delicately in Rome through the reigns of Septimius