Rome was once more to be harassed by the fury of a youthful monster. Caracalla concluded that one emperor would suffice. In order to carry out his purpose, he agreed to meet his brother in their mother's apartments and there discuss terms of reconciliation. While he was conversing with Geta, some centurions rushed into the room; and though his mother tried to protect her younger son with her arms, Caracalla urged the assassins to their work, and the empress herself was wounded and also covered with Geta's blood. Afterward, when the murderer found his mother in the midst of her female friends weeping over the fate of his brother, he threatened them all with death. This menace was indeed executed upon Fadilla, a surviving daughter of Marcus Aurelius. Milman says: "The most valuable paragraph of Dion, which the industry of M. Mai has recovered, relates to this daughter of Marcus, executed by Caracalla. Her name, as appears from Fronto, as well as from Dion, was Cornificia. When commanded to choose the kind of death she was to suffer, she burst into womanish tears; but remembering her father Marcus, she thus spoke: 'O my hapless soul, now imprisoned in the body, burst forth! be free! Show them, however reluctant to believe it, that thou art the daughter of Marcus.' She then laid aside all her ornaments, and, preparing herself for death, ordered her veins to be opened." Many other women died at this time because they were supposed to be sympathizers with Geta. It would have been an unnatural thing and a disgrace to humanity if Caracalla himself had escaped the assassin's hand. His fate came to him in his twenty-ninth year, as he was on a pilgrimage to the temple of the Moon; and Macrinus, who began life as a slave and was at one time a gladiator, reigned in his stead. The Empress Julia Domna did not long outlive her son. Hers had been a strange career. From a humble position she had been raised to that of the highest lady in the world; and she had been a power in her time. During the reign of Caracalla, though she could not restrain his enormities, she had really administered the Empire. With her exaltation had also come the most bitter sorrow. One son had been killed in her arms by the other; and now the fratricide had fallen by the assassin's weapon. She was at Antioch when she heard of her son's death. The news wounded her both as a mother and also as an empress; one who had been the servant of her husband was now to rule over her. Though Macrinus treated her with great consideration, life seemed no longer tolerable, and she resolved to starve herself to death. This resolution was not less easy to form, inasmuch as she was suffering from an incurable disease. There are some intimations that she first thought it possible to raise herself to the throne and reign, as did some of her famous female contemporaries in the East; but she soon carried out the project dictated by hopelessness and starved herself to death.