To write the history of the years from 219 to 221 (as we have it in the Scriptores) is a task which can only be undertaken adequately in a language not understanded of the people. Not that these years differed materially from those which had gone before, or those that followed. “Every altar in Old Rome had its Clodius”—so Juvenal has told us—“and even in Clodius’ absence there were always those breaths of sapphic song that blew through Mitylene. Rome was certainly old, but Rome was not good—not, at least, in the sense in which we use the word to-day. Of this no one who has even sauntered through the catacombs of the classics preserves so much as a lingering doubt. This is because the Roman world was beautiful, ornate, unutilitarian; a world into which trams, advertisements, and telegraph poles had not yet come; a world that still had illusions, myths, and mysteries, one in which religion and poetry went hand in hand, a world without newspapers, hypocrisy, and cant,” a world into which this boy Emperor, his mind attuned to the whole surroundings, entered proudly during either June or July in the year of grace 219. The date of the imperial family’s departure from Nicomedia is uncertain, on the information at present available; and we can only approximate to the date of their arrival in the city by means of a comparison between the statement of Eutropius that he reigned two years and eight months there, and the statement of Dion that he reigned in all three years nine months and four days, neither of which is definitely certain, as they do not agree with other authorities. If the date, if even the month, of Antonine’s death were capable of definite interpretation, the date of his arrival would be clear. As it is, most authorities have placed his entry into the city within the first fortnight of July; Wirth suggests, on the foregoing data, 11th July, to be precise. There are, however, various circumstances which incline us to an earlier period, most probably during the month of June. It seems incredible that, unless the illness already alluded to was of a most serious nature, the Emperor, with Macrinus’ failure before his eyes, should have stayed away from Rome for more than a year. It will be remembered that the Emperor Caracalla had been absent for some years before his death, warring against the Parthians; that Macrinus had spent the whole of his fourteen months’ precarious tenure of the imperial power in or about Antioch the voluptuous; and that the restored house of Antonine had ruled with undisputed sway from 8th June 218.