husband. Capitolinus, who has written the life of Antoninus, and also
Dion Cassius accuse the empress of scandalous infidelity to her husband
and of abominable lewdness. But Capitolinus says that Antoninus either
knew it not or pretended not to know it. Nothing is so common as such
malicious reports in all ages, and the history of imperial Rome is full
of them. Antoninus loved his wife, and he says that she was "obedient,
affectionate, and simple." The same scandal had been spread about
Faustina's mother, the wife of Antoninus Pius, and yet he too was
perfectly satisfied with his wife. Antoninus Pius says after her death in
a letter to Fronto that he would rather have lived in exile with his wife
than in his palace at Rome without her. There are not many men who would
give their wives a better character than these two emperors. Capitolinus
wrote in the time of Diocletian. He may have intended to tell the truth,
but he is a poor, feeble biographer. Dion Cassius, the most malignant of
historians, always reports and perhaps he believed any scandal against
anybody.

Antoninus continued his journey to Syria and Egypt, and on his return to
Italy through Athens he was initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries. It
was the practice of the emperor to conform to the established rites of
the age, and to perform religious ceremonies with due solemnity. We
cannot conclude from this that he was a superstitious man, though we
might perhaps do so if his book did not show that he was not. But this is
only one among many instances that a ruler's public acts do not always
prove his real opinions. A prudent governor will not roughly oppose even
the superstitions of his people; and though he may wish that they were
wiser, he will know that he cannot make them so by offending their
prejudices.

Antoninus and his son Commodus entered Rome in triumph, perhaps for some