Antoninus had suddenly, one day before [Footnote: "One day before" is a
conjecture of Bekker's. (The birthday of Antoninus seems to have been on
the sixth of April.)] his birthday, removed those of Macrinus's
companions that were in the latter's company, alleging one reason in one
case and another in another with the general pretext of doing them
honor. Not but [lacuna] expecting that it was fated for him to get it
he had also made a name which owed its origin to this fact. Accordingly,
he suborned two tribunes stationed in the pretorian guard, Nemesianus
and Apollinarius, brothers belonging to the Aurelian gens, and Julius
Martialius, who was enrolled among the evocati and had a private grudge
against Antoninus for not giving him the post of centurion on request.
Thus he made his plot, and it was carried out as follows. On the eighth
of April, when the emperor had set out from Edessa to Carrhæ and had
dismounted from his horse to go and ease himself, Martialius approached
as if he wanted to say something to him and struck him smartly with a
small knife. The assassin at once fled and would have escaped detection,
had he thrown away the sword. The weapon led to his being recognized by
one of the Scythians on the staff of Antoninus, and he was brought down
with a javelin. As for Martialius [lacuna] the military tribunes pretending
to come to the rescue slew [lacuna]

[This Scythian attended him, not merely to be an ally of his, but as
keeping guard over him to a certain extent. [Sidenote:--6--] For he
maintained Scythians and Celtæ about him, free and slaves alike, whom he
had taken away from children and wives and had equipped with arms; and
he affected to place more dependence upon them than upon the soldiers.
To illustrate, he kept honoring them with posts as centurions, and he
called them "lions." Moreover, he would often converse with emissaries
sent from the very provinces, and in the presence of no one else but the
interpreters would urge them, in case any catastrophe befell him, to