riches and
honors by affecting to despise them. [1] His excessive indulgence to
his brother, [105] his wife, and his son, exceeded the bounds of private
virtue, and became a public injury, by the example and consequences of
their vices.

[Footnote 1: See the complaints of Avidius Cassius, Hist. August. p.
45. These are, it is true, the complaints of faction; but even faction
exaggerates, rather than invents.]

[Footnote 105: His brother by adoption, and his colleague, L. Verus.
Marcus Aurelius had no other brother.--W.]

Faustina, the daughter of Pius and the wife of Marcus, has been as much
celebrated for her gallantries as for her beauty. The grave simplicity
of the philosopher was ill calculated to engage her wanton levity, or to
fix that unbounded passion for variety, which often discovered personal
merit in the meanest of mankind. [2] The Cupid of the ancients was, in
general, a very sensual deity; and the amours of an empress, as they
exact on her side the plainest advances, are seldom susceptible of much
sentimental delicacy. Marcus was the only man in the empire who seemed
ignorant or insensible of the irregularities of Faustina; which,
according to the prejudices of every age, reflected some disgrace on the
injured husband. He promoted several of her lovers to posts of honor and
profit, [3] and during a connection of thirty years, invariably gave her
proofs of the most tender confidence, and of a respect which ended not
with her life. In his Meditations, he thanks the gods, who had bestowed
on him a wife so faithful, so gentle, and of such a wonderful simplicity
of manners. [4] The obsequious senate, at his earnest request, declared
her a goddess. She was represented in her temples, with the attributes
of Juno, Venus, and Ceres; and it was decreed, that, on the day of their
nuptials, the youth of either sex should pay their vows before the altar
of their chaste patroness. [5]

[Footnote 2: Faustinam satis constat apud Cajetam conditiones sibi et
nauticas et gladiatorias, elegisse. Hist. August. p. 30. Lampridius
explains the sort of merit which Faustina chose, and the conditions
which she exacted. Hist. August. p. 102.]

[Footnote 3: Hist. August. p. 34.]

[Footnote 4: Meditat. l. i. The world has laughed at the credulity of
Marcus but Madam Dacier assures us, (and we may credit a lady,) that the
husband will always be deceived, if the wife condescends to dissemble.]
[Footnote 5: Dion Cassius, l. lxxi. [