the black design to her second husband, Claudius Pompeianus,
a senator of distinguished merit and unshaken loyalty; but among the
crowd of her lovers--for she imitated the manners of Faustina--she found
men of desperate fortunes and wild ambition, who were prepared to serve
her more violent as well as her tender passions. The conspirators
experienced the rigor of justice, and the abandoned princess was
punished, first with exile, and afterward with death.

But the words of the assassin sunk deep into the mind of Commodus, and
left an indelible impression of fear and hatred against the whole body
of the senate. Those whom he had dreaded as importunate ministers he now
suspected as secret enemies. The delators, a race of men discouraged and
almost extinguished under the former reigns, again became formidable, as
soon as they discovered that the Emperor was desirous of finding
disaffection and treason in the senate. That assembly, whom Marcus had
ever considered as the great council of the nation, was composed of the
most distinguished of the Romans; and distinction of every kind soon
became criminal. The possession of wealth stimulated the diligence of
the informers; rigid virtue implied a tacit censure of the
irregularities of Commodus; important services implied a dangerous
superiority of merit; and the friendship of the father always insured
the aversion of the son. Suspicion was equivalent to proof; trial to
condemnation. The execution of a considerable senator was attended with
the death of all who might lament or revenge his fate, and when Commodus
had once tasted human blood he became incapable of pity or remorse.

Of these innocent victims of tyranny none died more lamented than the
two brothers of the Quintilian family, Maximus and Condianus, whose
fraternal love has saved their names from oblivion and endeared their
memory to posterity. Their studies and their occupations, their pursuits
and their pleasures, were still the same. In the enjoyment of a great
estate they never admitted the idea of a separate interest: some
fragments are now extant of a treatise which they composed in common;
and in every action of life it was observed that their two bodies were
animated by one soul. The Antonines, who valued their virtues and
delighted in their union, raised them, in the same year, to the
consulship; and Marcus afterward intrusted to their joint care the civil
administration of Greece, and a great military command,