And there was yet another side to the suggestion which commended itself to the Emperor’s favourable consideration. In his present position Alexianus was a distinct menace to the government. Since Antonine’s mistake about Vesta and Severa, his cousin had been used as a lever wherewith to raise popular indignation. There had been two plots, as we have pointed out, to dethrone Antonine; and, presumably, as Julia Mamaea was behind both, to replace him by Alexianus. Why not take the boy into his own keeping, adopt him as Maesa suggested, and, by taking their tool from their hands in response to their own appeal, neutralise the influence of both aunt and grandmother at one swoop? He could then train him in his own way. Alexianus was young—Herodian says about twelve years old—and ought, if he were a natural child, to be easily won by kindness, friendship, and joy. This information of Herodian’s as to age is, for a wonder, corroborated by several reliable sources; not that Herodian knew he was right even in this case, because he puts the adoption in the year 220 instead of 221, which would have made Alexianus about eleven instead of over twelve years old, as he states. [Illustration: Thyatira Coin of Elagabalus (British Museum). Coin struck to commemorate Alexianus’ adoption, A.D. 221 (British Museum). Coin struck to commemorate Alexander as Pont. Max., A.D. 221 (British Museum). _Face page 142._] This is the only rational view to take of the Emperor’s apparent gullibility, as Antonine was far too quick-witted not to have scented trouble in any scheme, however specious, to which his aunt was party. He had already heard of her dealings with the soldiers, and of the money that she was spending with a purpose: obviously he saw in the adoption a loophole for his own escape, and at the same time for her undoing. His friends may have warned him to look out for rocks ahead. They knew that the boy was dealing with two able and crafty women made desperate by their continual disappointments; if so, he must have refused to listen to them, for some time early in July Antonine took his cousin Alexianus to the Senate, and there, in the presence of the women, this boy of sixteen summers went through the ceremony of adopting the child of twelve. He then solemnly declared his intention of training his son himself, fitting him for the business of Empire early, in order that he might be free from solicitudes about a successor. Now, this was by no means Mamaea’s plan, and caused endless friction in the working. Antonine obviously thought that some explanation of his decision was needed, and had the audacity to tell the assembled fathers that he was acting on the commands of the great God, who had designated Alexianus as the successor to the name and Empire of Severus,—this on the basis of a bastardy almost as probable as his own.