The tutor was nagging and pedagogic. Further, a plot was unmasked. Gannys did not realise that the Antonine temper, when developed, was not a thing to play with. The Emperor forgot himself, and in a fit of mad anger rushed at his tormentor with his sword or knife drawn, struck, and even wounded him. As was only natural, Gannys drew to defend himself, and the guards, fearing for Antonine’s life, interposed, and the unfortunate man was no more. Gannys’ fault lay in neglecting the boy’s training for amorous converse with his female relations; putting off his duty of moulding the plastic character until all was set, hard as bronze, in a misshapen and distorted mould. He had put everything off till a time when reformation was impossible, and the reckoning must be paid by the defaulter. There is no other murder or act of cruelty, either recorded or hinted at by any one of the men who were paid to ruin his reputation. The worst that they can say is, that his character was debased, and small wonder. As we read this Emperor’s life, we are bound to admit that his nature was debased; but we are struck, not so much by this fact, as by the necessary conclusion that he could never have had the opportunity of being anything else. His faults are admittedly the faults of children, magnified by the fact that he was a child suddenly placed in the unfortunate position where all restraint from outside was impossible, and where his wayward petulancy forbade any to tempt the trial. To him the possession of supreme power meant the holding of limitless privileges, with practically no training for the responsibilities involved. The whole position calls for our pity rather than our censure, if we realise that his only training was neurotic or religious, and phallic at that. All things considered, it is a marvel that no deeds of murder, rapine, envy, hatred, or malice have been laid to his charge, even by his enemies; such as have been laid to the charge not only of his predecessors, but even at the door of those whom the world honours as the righteous, the salt of the earth. No history is immaculate. If it were, it would relate to a better world; unable to be immaculate, history is usually stupid, more usually false. Concerning Elagabalus, it has contrived to be absurd, by means of the impossibility of the statements for which it attempts to offer neither proof nor likelihood.