Next morning he held a court-martial to try the soldiers who had made themselves conspicuous by the warmth of their reception of Alexander. Herodian and the Emperor seem to have quite forgotten that the guards were mutinying, as we hear no more of that story, though obviously they ought to have been tried for that offence first. At any rate, Antonine, still penetrated with terror, condemned these men to death as seditious persons. The soldiers, transported with rage at his treatment of their companions, and filled with hatred of the Emperor, conceived the notion of succouring their imprisoned brethren by upsetting the dishonoured Emperor. Time and pretext were admirable; they killed Antonine and with him Soaemias, who was present, both as his mother and as Empress; they then included in the massacre all those of the cortège who were in the camp, and known to be Antonine’s ministers or accomplices in his crimes. They then gave the bodies to the mob, to be dragged about the streets of Rome, finally throwing that of the Emperor into the Tiber from the Aemilian Bridge. All this was presumably done under the eyes of, and with the consent of Eutychianus, the Emperor’s friend and chief minister, who was, it will be remembered, in command of the Praetorians at the time. A careful comparison of these three stories reveals the fact that none of the eye-witnesses saw the same things, and none ascribe the deed to the same motive. All agree, however, in shifting the responsibility from the shoulders of the former conspirators on to those of the Praetorians. No one except Dion Cassius mentions either Maesa or Mamaea, and he merely says that Mamaea and Soaemias both urged murder each of her sister’s son. No mention is made of Antonine’s supposed plot against his cousin; in fact, all reference to plots against Alexander, Maesa, and Mamaea is here carefully eliminated, surely with an object; since it has been the great reason given heretofore for the Emperor’s unpopularity, and precarious position. But let us attempt to reconstruct the events of this memorable day. From Herodian we learn that the state litter was used; that in it travelled the two Consuls, accompanied by at least the Empress mother; Fulvius Diogenianus, the Praefect of Rome; Aurelius Eubulus, who, as chancellor of the exchequer, had made himself extremely unpopular by robbing hen-roosts (Dion), and was in consequence torn to pieces by the mob; Hierocles, the Emperor’s friend and husband (who had recently been designated Caesar, presumably as a sort of set-off to Alexander), and two out of the three Praetorian praefects.