When Zminis met his end by the wild beasts in the arena, it was before
half-empty seats, though several legions had been ordered into the
amphitheatre to fill them. The larger number of the citizens were slain,
and the remainder were in mourning for relatives more or less near; and
they also kept away from the scene to avoid the hated despot.

Macrinus now governed the empire almost as a sovereign, for Caesar,
formerly a laborious and autocratic ruler, shrank from all business.
Even before they left Alexandria the plebeian prefect could see that
Serapion's prophecy was fulfilling itself. He remained in close intimacy
with the soothsayer; but only once more, and just before Caesar's
departure, could the magian be induced to raise the spirits of the dead,
for his clever accomplice, Castor, had fallen a victim in the massacre
because, prompted by the high price set on Alexander's head, and his own
fierce hatred of the young painter, he would go out to discover where he
and his sister had concealed themselves.

When at last the unhappy monarch quitted Alexandria one rainy morning,
followed by the curses of innumerable mourners--fathers, mothers, widows,
and orphans--as well as of ruined artisans and craftsmen, the ill-used
city, once so proudly gay, felt itself relieved of a crushing nightmare.
This time it was not to Caesar that the cloudy sky promised welfare--his
life was wrapped in gloom--but to the people he had so bitterly hated.
Thousands looked forward hopefully to life once more, in spite of their
mourning robes and widows' veils, and notwithstanding the serious
hindrances which the malice of their "afflicted" sovereign had placed in
the way of the resuscitation of their town, for Caracalla had commanded
that a wall should be built to divide the great merchant city into two
parts.