Now, venality is a vice not confined to the modern world; then, as now, it was possible to find men who considered that their usefulness was underestimated, and that their position inadequately represented their merits. The record of at least three such personages and their attempts has come down to us: the first was that instituted by Pomponius Bassus and his colleague Silius Messala, who had adopted Mamaea’s line of argument as to the inadvisability of allowing Antonine’s mistaken religious policy to continue; the second, that of Seius Carus, who in 221 attempted the corruption of the Alban Legion in either his own or Alexianus’ interest—and in both of these plots we are led to infer that Julia Mamaea had a considerable finger. The question of Seius Carus is one of considerable interest from this point of view. The gentleman was wealthy and of the patrician order, which facts did not prevent him, according to Dion, from spending his money freely amongst the soldiery, obviously with an ulterior motive. Unfortunately for him, he hit upon the wrong legion, the body which was now quartered near Rome and had joined Antonine so readily at Apamea in 218. In the year 220 this legion had set up an inscription to Antonine’s Victoria Aeterna, which monument had expressed the greatest possible devotion to the reigning Emperor, and gave the lie direct to those stories of Dion and Lampridius, which assert that, as early as the winter of 218, the soldiers cordially hated Antonine, and placed all their hopes on Alexianus. Lampridius gives a very poor reason for this—because, forsooth, they could not stand the thought that he was as ready as they themselves were to receive pleasure through all the cavities of his body. Dion relates Seius’ trial, but ignoring the fact of the plot, which he had just mentioned, he informs us that the gentleman suffered for a crime which was absolutely unknown to the imperial, as indeed to any other legal system, unless it be the ecclesiastical—“on account of his worth and abilities.” Unfortunately, Dion does not point out why the millions of other men in the Empire, equally worthy and equally able, were allowed a greater longevity, though it is certainly a point which might be considered with some show of interest. But to return to the imperial ladies. As we have said, they were spending much time searching out disaffected subjects, and repeating stories not conducive either to peace or tranquillity; further, they were making use of Antonine’s most foolish resolve to cut down military expenditure at the price of a possible unpopularity, by giving a decided preference to the civil element in the population, a proceeding which, as we have remarked on more than one occasion, was not only foolish but under the circumstances criminally wrong. Despite the manifold and splendid qualities which soldiers possessed, it must be confessed that they were as eager for gain