well believe they were being pampered on account of the demands of war.
And again [lacuna] So the others killed certain soldiers and ravaged
portions of Mesopotamia, and these men butchered not a few of their own
number and also overthrew their emperor; and, what is still worse, they
set up another similar ruler, by whom nothing was done save what was
evil and base. [Sidenote:--30--] It seems to me that this occurrence had
been foreshadowed more clearly, perhaps, than any previous event. A
very distinct eclipse of the sun [had taken place] about that time, [and
the comet-star was seen for a considerable period. And another]
luminary, whose tail extended from the west to the east, for several
nights caused us terrible alarm, so that this verse of Homer's was ever
on our lips:

"Rang the vast welkin with clarion calls, and Zeus heard the tumult."
[Footnote: From Homer's Iliad, XXI, verse 388.]

It was brought about in the following way:

Mæsa, the sister of Julia Augusta, had two daughters, Soæmias and
Mammæa, by her husband Julius, an ex-consul. She had also two male
grandchildren. One was Avitus, the child of Soæmias and Varius
Marcellus, a man of the same race,--he was from Apamea,--who had been
occupied in procuratorships, had been enrolled in the senate, and soon
after died. The other was Bassianus, the child of Mammæa and Gessius
Marcianus, who was himself also a Syrian, from a city called Arca, and
had been assigned to various positions as procurator. Now Mæsa at home
in Emesa her life [lacuna] her sister Julia, with whom she had made her
abode during the entire period of the latter's reign, having perished.
For Avitus, after governing in Asia, sent by Caracalla from Mesopotamia
into Cyprus, was seen to be limited to the position of adviser to some