A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

to whom an inscription quoted by Tillemont after Onuphrius Panvinius gives the names Catinius Acilianus Lepidus Fulginianus, was consul in A. D. 193 and 204, and was the chosen friend of Septimius Severus, by whom he was appointed praefect of the city and tutor to his two sons. Having endeavoured to mediate between the brothers, he incurred the hatred of the elder, who after the murder of Geta gave orders that the man who had ever acted towards him the part of a father, and whom he had often addressed by that title, should be included in the massacre which followed. The soldiers hastened to the mansion of Cilo, and after plundering it of all the costly furniture and other precious effects, dragged him from the bath, compelled him to walk through the streets in his wooden slippers and a single scanty garment, buffeting him as they hurried along with the intention of putting him to death when they should have reached the palace. This gratuitous cruelty proved his salvation. For the populace, beholding one whom they had been wont to honour treated with such indignity, began to murmur, and were joined by the city-guards. A tumult was imminent, when Caracalla came forth to meet the mob, and partly through fear, partly perhaps touched for a moment with compunction, threw his own cloak over the shoulders of his former preceptor, once more addressed him as father and master, gave orders that the tribune and his attendants who had been sent to perpetrate the crime should themselves be put to death, not, says Dion, because they had wished to slay their victim, but because they had failed to do so, and continued to treat him with the outward semblance at least of respect. The only other anecdote preserved with regard to Cilo is, that he saved the life of Macrinus at the time when the latter was upon the point of sharing the fate of Plautianus [PLAUTIANUS], whose agent he was, and thus the destruction of Caracalla was indirectly hastened by the friend and benefactor whom he had sought to destroy. (D. C. 77.4, 78.11; Spartian. Caracall. 4; Aurel. Vict. Epit. 20.)

[W.R]