Like Commodus, Caracalla had a taste for gladiatorial arts; but he was small in size, and not so handsome as Commodus. He had a silly kind of fondness for Alexander the Great; and if we may judge from the busts, it must be acknowledged that there was some likeness between them: the province of Macedon was, therefore, the only one to which he did any good. He formed a phalanx of Macedonians, and also assumed the name of Magnus: in the law books, he is often spoken of as Magnus Antoninus. Led by this feeling, he also went like Alexander to the East, to overthrow the Parthian empire; and he had his Macedonian phalanx with him. Everywhere he showed a very strong leaning towards anything that was Greek, a taste which may have been very much owing to the fact of his having a Syrian mother. The war against the Parthians he brought on, without having real cause for it. According to Herodian, he was guilty of an act of monstrous treachery: he invited Artabanus to a conference, and then tried to surprise him, and murdered a number of Parthians. These accounts, however, are all of them very doubtful in their details. Severus had already taken possession of Osroëne, where the reigning dynasty had been established for three hundred years: in the legend, an Abgarus betakes himself to our Saviour, beseeching him for his aid in a sickness. The king Abgarus at this time, was a vassal of the Parthians: Caracalla expelled him, and converted Osroëne into a Roman province. Whilst he was engaged here in preparations for a war against the Parthians themselves, he was murdered, in the year 217, at the instigation of the _præfectus prætorio_ M. Macrinus, who had found his own life to be threatened. The soldiers, however, heard of the death of their emperor with indignation, and Macrinus had to try every means to deceive them as to his share in it; whereupon he was proclaimed emperor. Dio’s and Herodian’s accounts of Macrinus, which are in his favour, may be much better relied upon than the nonsense of the _Scriptores Historiæ Augustæ_. Yet if Macrinus wished to be a praiseworthy prince, his character as such depended upon his getting the mastery over his soldiers: for their lawlessness had frightfully increased under Caracalla, as he let them do what they listed without punishing them. Macrinus, therefore, began to reform them, introducing discipline, and trying by degrees to lessen the concessions of Caracalla; and thus he either disbanded whole legions as veterans, and enlisted new ones on fairer conditions, or, which seems to me more likely, he merely filled up the old ones by new recruits. By this, however, he made himself hateful to them. They would not put up with it; and hence arose a rebellion. Hereupon young Avitus came forth. They might, however, have found another leader, Maximin perhaps, if Avitus had not presented himself.