It is a great pity, that we know so little about the measures of Severus. That he made great changes, especially in the administration of Italy, is quite evident. It must have been he who placed _correctores_ over each of the regions; or it may be, one _corrector_ over several united regions. Probably they had the jurisdiction in their own districts. What was the nature of the jurisdiction in Italy after the _Lex Julia_, is shrouded in the greatest darkness: something, however, must have been done to get rid of the inconveniences which had arisen. The whole of this matter is still to be investigated: inscriptions and laws might indeed throw some light on it. Yet what were the functions of these _correctores_ on the whole, is difficult to make out. Even as early as under the emperors who came immediately before Hadrian, traces are met with of commissions by virtue of which the jurisdiction of Italy was given by districts to people of rank. The _Præfectus Urbi_ had even since Hadrian’s days (though not before) a district of a hundred Italian miles round Rome: this is, however, as yet, but a conjecture of mine. Hadrian appointed consulars to them in due form. Antoninus Pius also kept them up for some time: afterwards, they were again abolished. From the reign of Severus, we regularly meet with the _correctores_ in Italy. M. ANTONINUS CARACALLA. MACRINUS. ELAGABALUS. ALEXANDER SEVERUS. After the death of Septimius Severus (211), M. Bassianus, as he is called after his maternal grandfather,—or M. Antoninus as he is called in consequence of the fiction of his adoption; or Caracalla, as he is called by the moderns; had together with his brother, Geta, taken upon himself the government; the younger, however, being subordinate to the elder. Neither of them was noble-hearted or praiseworthy; yet Geta excites the greater interest of the two, because of his having become the victim: still, it is not at all clear that he was better than the other. It is hardly possible to form an opinion of him. The hostility between the two brothers broke out soon after the death of their father: their feelings towards each other became very bad, which was chiefly owing to the malice of the elder one, and they were already about to divide the empire. But as this would have been to the disadvantage of the younger, who was to have had a far smaller empire in the East; their mother made a last attempt to bring about a reconciliation between them, but in vain. Caracalla seemed to listen to her proposals; but this was only a stratagem to entice his brother into a place where he could murder him. In the apartments of the mother, the reconciliation was to have been brought about: Geta was stabbed in her arms. By this murder, the minds of men, which even then had begun to be quite Asiatic in feeling,—inconceivably so indeed,—were not much affected. Even the mother, although Geta had been her darling son, did not, after what had