Julia Domna had, after the death of her son, been condemned to seclusion by Macrinus, and she had herself put an end to her own life. Her sister Mæsa also had been banished. The latter had two daughters, both of them married in Syria: the names of the husbands were Roman, but the children were thorough Syrians, or Syrian-Greeks. The husband of Soæmis, the elder sister, was Sextus Varius Marcellus: this name, and the high offices which he held, lead to the conclusion that he was a Roman. The husband of the younger sister, Mamæa, was called Gessius Macrianus. Soæmis had a son and several daughters; Mamæa, a son and a daughter. The son of Soæmis was Avitus, afterwards M. Aurelius Antoninus, generally known by us as Elagabalus (corruptly Heliogabalus, as the name has nothing whatever to do with ἥλιος): he also bore the name of Bassianus, as people at that time often dropped their names, and as often took new ones. This Elagabalus was now seventeen years of age at most, quite a Syrian, and priest to the god Elagabalus at Emesa, where some aerolites which had fallen in the neighbourhood were worshipped. This young man, Mæsa and his own mother Soæmis declared to have been the offspring of an adulterous intercourse with Caracalla. Mæsa collected her immense riches at Emesa, and taking advantage of the discontent of the soldiers began to bribe them. Very many of them espoused her cause. Macrinus at first held this defection to be of no consequence; but quite contrary to all expectation, the fondness of the soldiers for Caracalla was transferred to Elagabalus, from whom besides they looked for a new donation. Had Macrinus now acted at once, he might yet have had the best of it; for in the decisive battle, the prætorians displayed greater bravery than was thought to be in them. But he gave himself up too soon for lost; and he fled from the fight with his son Antoninus Diadumenianus to Asia Minor, where he was overtaken and beheaded by the order of the young tyrant (218).