[Sidenote:--5--] On these charges] Silius Messala and Pomponius Bassus [also were condemned to death by the senate: they] incurred blame because they were not pleased with what he was doing. He did not hesitate to write this statement about them to the senate, and called them investigators of his habits of life and censors of proceedings in the palace. ["The proofs of their plot I have not sent you," he said, "because it would be useless to read them, in view of the fact that the men are already dead."] There was another cause of dislike underlying [the case against Messala,--the point, namely, that he sturdily made public many facts in the senate. This was what led the emperor at the outset to send for him to come to Syria, pretending to have very great need of him, whereas his real fear was that Messala might bring about a change of attitude on the part of the senators. The cause in] the case of Bassus was that he had a wife both fair to look upon and of noble rank; she was a descendant of Claudius Severus and of Marcus Antoninus. Indeed, the prince married her, not allowing her even to mourn the catastrophe. Now of his marriages, in which he both married and was bestowed in marriage, an account will be given presently. He appeared both as man and as woman, and performed the functions of both in the most licentious fashion [lacuna] about [lacuna] and [lacuna] by whom [lacuna] own [lacuna] Sergius [lacuna] and [lacuna] out of [lacuna] any [lacuna] making [lacuna] him [lacuna] blame for [lacuna] slaughter the [Sidenote:--6--] [lacuna] and of knights [lacuna] Cæsarians [lacuna] [lacuna] were destroyed [lacuna] nothing [lacuna] but by killing in Nicomedea at the very start of his reign Gannys, who had arranged the uprising, who had introduced him into the camp and had likewise caused [the soldiers to revolt, who had presented him with the victory over Macrinus, one who had reared and managed him,--by this act he came to be regarded as the most impious of men. To be sure, Gannys was living rather luxuriously and was fond of accepting bribes, but for all that he brought no injury upon anybody and bestowed many benefits upon many people. Most of all, he always showed a deep respect for the emperor, and he was thoroughly satisfactory to Mæsa and Soæmias, suiting the former because she had brought him up and the latter because he practically lived with her. But these were not the reasons why the emperor put him out of the way, seeing that he was willing to give him a marriage contract and appoint him Cæsar. It was rather that Gannys compelled him to live temperately and prudently. And his own hand was the first to give his minister a mortal blow, since no one of the soldiers had the hardihood to take the initiative in his murder.--These events, then, took place in this way.