It was in full sight of this lady’s inconsequences that Faustine was educated.  Wherever she looked, the candors of her girlhood were violated.  The phallus then was omnipresent.  Iamblicus, not the novelist, but the philosopher, has much to say on the subject; as has Arnobius in the Adversus gentes, and Lactance in the De falsa religione.  If Juvenal, Martial, Petronius, are more reticent, it is because they were not Fathers of the Church, nor yet antiquarians.  No one among us exacts a description of a spire.  The phallus was as common to them, commoner even.  It was on the coins, on the doors, in the gardens.  As a preservative against Envy it hung from children’s necks.  On sun-dials and water clocks it marked the flight of time.  The vestals worshipped it.  At weddings it was used in a manner which need not be described.

It was from such surroundings that Faustine stepped into the arms of the severe and stately prince whom her father had chosen.  That Marcus Aurelius adored her is certain.  His notebook shows it.  A more tender-hearted and perfect lover romance may show, but history cannot.  He must have been the quintessence of refinement, a thoroughbred to his finger-tips; one for whom that purple mantle was too gaudy, and yet who bore it, as he bore everything else, in that self-abnegatory spirit which the higher reaches of philosophy bring.

He was of that rare type that never complains and always consoles.

After Antonin’s death, his hours ceased to be his own.  On the Euphrates there was the wildest disorder.  To the north new races were pushing nations over the Danube and the Rhine.  From the catacombs Christ was emerging; from the Nile, Serapis.  The empire was in disarray.  Antonin had provided his son-in-law with a coadjutor, Lucius Verus, the son of Hadrian’s mignon, a magnificent scoundrel; a tall, broad-shouldered athlete, with a skin as fresh as a girl’s and thick curly hair, which he covered with a powder of gold; a viveur, whose suppers are famous still; whose guests were given the slaves that served them, the plate off which they had eaten, the cups from which they had drunk—­cups of gold, cups of silver, jewelled cups, cups from Alexandria, murrhine vases filled with nard—­cars and litters to go home with, mules with silver trappings and negro muleteers.  Capitolinus says that, while the guests feasted, sometimes the magnificent Verus got drunk, and was carried to bed in a coverlid, or else, the red feather aiding, turned out and fought the watch.

It was this splendid individual to whom Marcus Aurelius entrusted the Euphrates.  They had been brought up together, sharing each others tutors, writing themes for the same instructor, both meanwhile adolescently enamored of the fair Faustine.  It was to Marcus she was given, the empire as a dower; and when that dower passed into his hands, he could think of nothing more equitable than to ask Verus to share it with him.  Verus was not stupid enough to refuse, and at the hour when the Parthians turned ugly, he needed little urging to set out for the East, dreaming, as he did so, of creating there an empire that should be wholly his.