[111] FOR the fantastical colleague of the philosophic emperor Marcus Aurelius, returning in triumph from the East, had brought in his train, among the enemies of Rome, one by no means a captive.

People actually sickened at a sudden touch of the unsuspected foe, as they watched in dense crowds the pathetic or grotesque imagery of failure or success in the triumphal procession.

And, as usual, the plague brought with it a power to develop all pre-existent germs of superstition.

It was by dishonour done to Apollo himself, said popular rumour--to Apollo, the old titular divinity of pestilence, that the poisonous thing had come abroad.

Pent up in a golden coffer consecrated to the god, it had escaped in the sacrilegious plundering of his temple at Seleucia by the soldiers of Lucius Verus, after a traitorous surprise of that town and a cruel massacre.