Then the number of the slain was discussed. No one could estimate it
exactly. Zminis, the only man who could have seen everything, had not
appeared: Fifty, sixty, seventy thousand Alexandrians were supposed to
have suffered death; Macrinus, however, asserted that there must have
been more than a hundred thousand, and Caracalla rewarded him for his
statement by exclaiming loudly "Splendid! grand! Hardly comprehensible
by the vulgar mind! But, even so, it is not the end of what I mean to
give them. To-day I have racked their limbs; but I have yet to strike
them to the heart, as they have stricken me!"

He ceased, and after a short pause repeated unhesitatingly, and as though
by a sudden impulse, the lines with which Euripides ends several of his
tragedies:

"Jove in high heaven dispenses various fates;
And now the gods shower blessings which our hope
Dared not aspire to, now control the ills
We deemed inevitable. Thus the god
To these hath given an end we never thought."

--Potter's translation.

And this was the end of the revolting scene, for, as he spoke, Caesar
pushed away his cup and sat staring into vacancy, so pale that his
physician, foreseeing a fresh attack, brought out his medicine vial.

The praetorian prefect gave a signal to the rest that they should not
notice the change in their imperial host, and he did his best to keep the
conversation going, till Caracalla, after a long pause, wiped his brow
and exclaimed hoarsely: "What has become of the Egyptian? He was to