The succession of Heliogabalus to the empire hav ing been ratified by the senate and citizens of Rome, he was invested with the usual titles, and at the age of fourteen put in possession of absolute power. Sur rounded by flatterers, who found it their interest to gratify him in all his propensities, however wild, He liogabalus was soon initiated into all the profligacy of the times; and he is described by the Roman historian as a monster of sensuality and vice. All the prosti tutes of Rome assembled in his palace, and the most infamous of the mob became the imperial favourites. He appointed his grandmother nesa, and his mother Swmias his colleagues in the empire; and, in order to dignify the sex, to which he was so much attached, he created a female senate, over which his mother presided, and the object of which was to arrange the fashions which were to prevail in the empire. He next raised to the honours of the consulship his own horse, whom he fed with gilded oats; and he forced his subjects to worship the god Heliogabalus, which was a large black stone of a conical shape. To this deity temples were raised, and the shrines of the gods were plundered to deck that of the newly invented di vinity. His prodigality was such, that he considered nothing worth eating that was bought at a moderate price. His supper commonly cost 6000 crowns; and on some occasions so much as 60,000. He dressed himself in gold and purple clothes, and never wore the same dress twice. His apartments were furnish ed with the richest stuffs, covered with gold and jew els. His mats consisted of the down of hares, or the soft feathers from beneath the wings of partridges ; and his carpets were made of gold and silver tissue, and his shoes were covered with precious stones, to attract the notice of the populace.
Annoyed with these excesses, his mother Mxsa, conceiving that she might diminish his power, by sharing it with a colleague, proposed to him to adopt his cousin german, Alexander Severus, and to make him a partner in his throne. Heliogabalus agreed to the •equest; but was soon desirous of undoing what he had done. The virtues of Alexander, however, had endeared him to the soldiers; and when Helioga balus attempted to deprive him of the throne, the Prxtorian soldiers resented the attempt, and would have killed the emperor as he was walking in his gar den had he not saved himself by flight. The seditious spirit however continued ; and the soldiers insisted upon guarding Alexander, and upon prohibiting any of the emperor's favourites from contaminating him with their society. Heliogabalus was with the mutinous spirit of his guards, and made prepara tions for his death suitable to his general habits. He erected a tower with gold and mother-of-pearl steps, from which he might precipitate himself if necessary. He kept about his person cords of purple, silk and gold, for the purpose of strangling himself; he provi ded golden swords and daggers to stab himself with; and he had different poisons kept in boxes of emerald. In this state of mind he suspected the senate of hav ing designs against him, and he banished them from the city; he attempted to poison Alexander, but the mutiny of the soldiers prevented him from carrying it into effect; and when he thus found himself threatened on all sides, he meditated new cruelties against his enemies. The soldiers resolved to put an end to such
a system. They followed him into his palace; pur sued him from room to room ; and at last found him hid in a privy, from which he was dragged into the street, and ignominiously put to death. They at tempted to thrust his carcase into a privy; but finding this difficult, they loaded it with weights, and cast it into the Tiber. His mother, and many of the part ners of his crimes, were at the same time put to death.
Alexander Severus was unanimously declared em peror by the senate and the people, and he was every way deserving of that high honour. Though possess ed of absolute power at the age of sixteen, yet his mother Mammea, one of his advisers, was distinguish ed for her talents and virtues, and exerted every nerve to make the reign of her son honourable to himself, and useful as well as glorious for the empire. One of the first steps of Alexander was to reform the abuses of the preceding reign; to punish with severity every magistrate that took bribes; and to reward all those whose conduct was marked with justice and integrity. The humanity of the emperor was not inferior to his justice. He put down the luxuries of his predecessor, and did every thing in his power to promote morality, and to repress those licentious pleasures which had debased his subjects.
Under his beneficent sway, the Christians, who had suffered so many persecutions in Rome, were them selves protected; and in a dispute between the Christ ians and a company of cooks respecting a piece of public ground, which the one party wished as a place of worship, while the other meant to employ it in the exercise of their profession, the emperor decided in his rescript, " that it was better that God should be worshipped there in any manner, than that the spot should be devoted to drunkenness and debauchery." The personal accomplishments of this monarch have been highly extolled by historians. He was not only a patron of literature, but he devoted his leisure hours to the study of the Greek and Latin historians, orators, and poets. He was skilled in mathematics, geometry, and music. In painting and sculpture he had acquir ed great knowledge, and as a poet he is said to have had few rivals.
In the arts of war as well as in those of peace, Alexan der was pre-eminent. The tranquillity of the empire having been disturbed by the Persians, Alexander placed himself at the head of his army and marched into the East. He routed the Persians with great slaughter in a decisive battle; he took the cities of Ctesiphon and Babylon, and thus regained the territory which had been lost. When he returned to Antioch his mother Mammea sent for the celebrated Origen, to receive instructions from him respecting the prin ciples of Christianity, and after various communica tions with her, she sent him back with a proper guard to his native city of Alexandria. The generals of Al exander who commanded in other provinces, were equally successful. Furius Celsus subdued the Mau ritanians in Africa; Varius Macrinus obtained great successes in Germany; and Junius Palmatus triumph ed in Armenia.