[Sidenote: A.D. 221 (_a.u._ 974)] This is how it happened. He introduced his cousin Bassianus before the senate, and, having stationed Mæsa and Soæmias on either hand, adopted him as his child. Then did he congratulate himself on being suddenly the father of so large a child (as if he surpassed him in age) and declared that he needed no other offspring to keep his house free from despondency. Elagabalus, he said, had ordered him to do this and further to call his son's name Alexander. And I for my part am persuaded that it came about in very truth by some divine intention, and I base my inference not upon what he said but upon what was said to him by some one, viz., that an Alexander would come from Emesa to succeed him, and again on what took place in upper Moesia and in Thrace. [Sidenote:--18--] A little before this a spirit, declaring that he was the famous Alexander of Macedon, wearing his appearance and all his apparatus, started from the regions near the Ister, appearing there in I know not what way. It traversed Thrace and Asia, reveling in company with four hundred male attendants, who were equipped with thyrsi and fawn-skins and did no harm. The fact was admitted by all those who lived in Thrace at that time that lodgings and all the provisions for It were provided at public expense. And no one dared to oppose It either by word or by deed,--no governor, no soldier, no procurator, no heads of provinces,--but It proceeded, as if in a daylight procession prescribed by proclamation, to the confines of Bithynia. Leaving that point, it approached the Chalcedonian land and there, after performing some sacred rite by night and burying a wooden horse, it vanished. These facts I ascertained while still in Asia, as I stated, and before anything at all had been done about Bassianus in Rome. ¶One day the same man said this: "I have no need of titles derived, from war and blood. It suffices me to have you call me 'Pious' and 'Fortunate'." ¶The False Antoninus on receiving praise from the senate one day remarked: "Yes, you love me and, by Jupiter, so does the populace and likewise the foreign legions. But I do not satisfy the Pretorians, to whom I keep giving so much." [Sidenote: A.D. 222 (_a.u._ 975)] [Sidenote:--19--] So long as Sardanapalus continued to love his cousin, he was safe. But, since he was suspicious of all men, and learned that their favor was turning solely and absolutely to the boy, he dared to change his mind and worked in every way to effect his overthrow. ¶Some persons were conversing with the False Antoninus and remarked how fortunate he was to be consul along with his son. He rejoined: "I shall be more fortunate next year, for then I'm going to be consul with my truly-begotten son."