Page:The Amazing Emperor Heliogabalus.djvu/176

 two men we shall have occasion to speak later on.

There is still another thing to notice in connection with this dual marriage (that of the two Gods and of the High Priest and the Vestal), namely, the erection of a shrine in the Forum to celebrate the event, the which was probably built, according to Commendatore Boni, somewhere in the summer of the year 221. Certain pieces of a capital discovered near that place between the years 1870-1872, display the God Elagabal between Minerva and Urania, his second wife, which leads one to the conclusion that the union with Vesta, though no longer of earthly, was at least considered as one of spiritual duration.

But to proceed. By the spring of 221 Antonine must have discovered for himself, even if his friends had not told him, that his religious ideals were far from popular. The very fact of the plot was enough to show him how public opinion was trending, added to which general pressure seems to have been put upon the Emperor to rectify the two glaring mistakes which he had just made, through his perverse religiosity. We know from both Dion and Herodian that neither marriage lasted any length of time. Numismatic evidence of his third wedding is dated prior to 28th August 221, which presupposes that Aquilia Severa had returned to her nunnery, while the celebration of the nuptials between the Sun and Moon implies, what we know to be a fact, that Minerva had returned to the seclusion from which she ought never to have been