however, Dion denies flatly, asserting that the Emperor refused to take anything from her temple except two golden lions, presumably as a sort of protection for the journey, while he himself provided her dowry by a general impost on the whole Empire; so much for rival eye-witnesses. About this same time, certainly (as we have said) before 28th August, Antonine married again, presumably at the instigation of his grandmother, and to gain the allegiance of the patrician classes. The bride was widow of that busybody Pomponius Bassus, lately deceased. The alliance, like that of the God, was sure to be popular with all classes, and the lady, though by no means in her first youth (from the portraits on her medals she leaves one with the impression of being about forty-five years of age) was of Imperial Antonine lineage. Undoubtedly the Emperor soon tired of her charms, which were scarcely likely to please a boy of eighteen, and in consequence we are told he did not keep her long. She was a friend of his grandmother, a well-known and ambitious woman, who was quite pleased to dry her eyes at once and fall in with Maesa’s plan of appointing a sort of nuptial guardian for the boy, which would naturally be a great asset in the struggle that his grandmother and aunt had fully decided upon, from the moment when he made his mistake in underestimating the popular antipathy towards his unfortunate religious scheme. Both Maesa and Mamaea were now working together, for both were determined to consolidate in their hands the power that was Antonine’s by right. From this moment there is one continuous policy of corruption, vilification, and grab, while the women, their greedy claws ever stretching out, filch from the boy his popularity, his friends, and his reputation. Herodian tells us of the money spent to corrupt the guards. Every word of the biographies tells the same story. Even when they had encompassed his death and put another in his room they could not leave his memory in peace. The trump card in this game was played by Maesa’s diplomacy; she knew that the only way to win the boy was to attach herself to his religious ideals, and she therefore seems to have fallen in with his scheme for the union of Elagabal and Urania. She sympathised with his endeavour to make his God popular; indeed, was not Elagabal her God also, hers by right of her position as the eldest of his hereditary house of priests? Very insidiously she wormed her way into his boyish confidence, lulled his mind to rest, and then suggested her great plan, the appointment of Alexianus to help him in the government, to assist in the secular affairs which so sadly hampered the Emperor’s spiritual and sacerdotal functions. CHAPTER VI ANTONINE’S DEALINGS WITH ALEXANDER