Page:The Emperor Marcus Antoninus - His Conversation with Himself.djvu/82

 xxx upon her Journey, telling them that the usual Cavalcades, and Solemnities upon such Occasions, serv'd only to crowd the People to Death.

Verus, who expected Marcus Antoninus would come through, and make him a Visit, and being afraid he should hear of his Disorders, left Daphne, and went to meet his Brother Emperour at Ephesus, from whence he departed some few Days after the Solemnity of his Marriage, and return'd to Antioch with his Empress ; and here this great Lady soon learn'd to imitate the Liberties of Verus, and was too conformable to the Example her Mother Faustina had set her.

Verus having made a King of Armenia, and gain'd an entire Conquest over the Parthians, return'd to Rome, and had his share in the Honour of a Triumph, with Marcus Antoninus. His Return was likely to have been very Calamitous to the whole Empire, for he brought the Plague along with him, and left it in all the Places he marched through. The cause of this Pestilence was suppos'd to proceed from the following Accident. Upon the taking of Babylon, the Soldiers breaking in to Apollo's Temple to plunder it, found a little Golden Cabinet under Ground, which was no sooner open'd, but such a Rh