kept holding up to reproach the age of the False Antoninus, though he
had designated as emperor his son, who was much younger. [Now in the
battle Gannys hurriedly took possession of the narrow place in front of
the village and disposed his soldiers in good order for warfare,
regardless of the fact that he was most inexperienced in military
matters. Of such surpassing importance is good fortune in comparison
with other qualifications, that it actually bestows understanding upon
the ignorant.] But his army made a very weak fight and the men would not
have stood their ground, had not Mæsa and Soæmias [for they were already
in the boy's retinue] leaped down from their vehicles and, rushing among
the fugitives, by their lamentations restrained them from flight, and
had not the lad himself been seen by them (by some divine disposition of
affairs) with drawn sword on horseback charging the enemy. Even so they
would have turned their backs again, had not Macrinus fled at sight of
their resistance.

[Sidenote:--39--] The latter, having been thus defeated on the eighth of
June, sent his son in charge of Epagathus and some other attendants, to
Artabanus, king of the Parthians. He himself went to Antioch, giving out
that victory was his, to the end that he might be offered shelter there.
Then, when the news of his defeat became noised abroad, in the midst of
many consequent slaughters both along the roads and in the city,
springing from somebody's favoring the one side or the other, he made
his escape. From Antioch he proceeded by night, on horseback, with his
head and whole chin shaved, and attired in a dark garment worn over his
purple robe in order that he might, so far as possible, resemble an
ordinary citizen. In this way, with a few companions, he reached Ægæ in
Cilicia, and there, by pretending to be one of the soldiers that carried
messages, he got a wagon, on which he drove through Cappadocia and
Galatia and Bithynia as far as the shipyard of Eribolus, which is