The gladiators, and still more the sailors of that age, were constantly to be seen playing naked, and Faustina was shameless enough to take her station in places which gave her the advantages of a leisurely review; and she actually selected favorites from both classes on the ground of a personal inspection. With others of greater rank she is said even to have been surprised by her husband; in particular with one called Tertullus, at dinner. [Footnote: Upon which some _mimographus_ built an occasional notice of the scandal then floating on the public breath in the following terms: One of the actors having asked "_Who was the adulterous paramour?_" receives for answer, _Tullus_. Who? he asks again; and again for three times running he is answered, _Tullus_. But asking a fourth time, the rejoinder is, Jam dixi _ter Tullus_.] But to all remonstrances on this subject, Marcus is reported to have replied, "_Si uxorem dimittimus, reddamus et dotem;_" meaning that, having received his right of succession to the empire simply by his adoption into the family of Pius, his wife's father, gratitude and filial duty obliged him to view any dishonors emanating from his wife's conduct as joint legacies with the splendors inherited from their common father; in short, that he was not at liberty to separate the rose from its thorns. However, the facts are not sufficiently known to warrant us in criticising very severely his behavior on so trying an occasion. It would be too much for human frailty, that absolutely no stain should remain upon his memory. Possibly the best use which can be made of such a fact is, in the way of consolation to any unhappy man, whom his wife may too liberally have endowed with honors of this kind, by reminding him that he shares this distinction with the great philosophic emperor. The reflection upon this story by one of his biographers is this--"Such is the force of daily life in a good ruler, so great the power of his sanctity, gentleness, and piety, that no breath of slander or invidious suggestion from an acquaintance can avail to sully his memory. In short, to Antonine, immutable as the heavens in the tenor of his own life, and in the manifestations of his own moral temper, and who was not by possibility liable to any impulse or 'shadow of turning' from another man's suggestion, it was not eventually an injury that he was dishonored by some of his connections; on him, invulnerable in his own character, neither a harlot for his wife, nor a gladiator for his son, could inflict a wound. Then as now, oh sacred lord Diocletian, he was reputed a god; not as others are reputed, but specially and in a peculiar sense, and with a privilege to such worship from all men as you yourself addressed to him--who often breathe a wish to Heaven, that you were or could be such in life and merciful disposition as was Marcus Aurelius."