he succeeded in appeasing them. On this occasion, then, he was saved,
though with difficulty. His grandmother hated him for his practices
(which seemed to show that he was not the son of Antoninus) and was
coming to favor Alexander, as being really sprung from him.

[Sidenote:--20--] Later he again made a plot against Alexander and, as
the Pretorians raised an outcry at this, entered the camp with him.
Then, he became aware that he was under guard and awaiting execution,
for the mothers of the two, being more openly at variance with each
other than before, were stirring up the soldiers to action. He then made
an attempt to flee, and intended to escape to some point by being placed
in a box, but was discovered and slain, having reached eighteen years of
age. His mother, who embraced and clung tightly to him, perished with
him; their heads were cut off and their bodies, after being stripped
naked, were first dragged all over the city, and then the woman's trunk
was cast off in some corner, while his was thrown into the river.

[Sidenote:--21--] With him perished Hierocles, and others, and the
prefects; and Aurelius Eubulus, who was an Emesenian by race [and had
gone so far in lewdness and defilement that his surrender had earlier
been demanded by the populace]. He had been entrusted with the general
accounts [Footnote: One of the _rationales summarum_.] and there was
nothing that escaped his confiscations. So now he was torn to pieces by
the populace and the soldiers, and Fulvius, the city prefect, with him.
Comazon succeeded the latter, as he had succeeded Fulvius's predecessor.
Just as a mask used to be carried into the theatres to occupy the stage
during the intervals in the acting, when it was left vacant by the
comedians, so was Comazon put in the vacant place of the men who had
been prefects in his day over the city of Rome.--As for
Elagabalus, [Footnote: Elagabalus, the god.] he was banished from Rome