The path to the East for the Roman lay through Athens, where Plotina and her companions would survey the decaying splendour of the Greek civilization in which they had long been interested. Envoys from the Parthians met Trajan there, and tried to disarm him, but he dismissed them, and pushed on to the field in which he trusted to win fresh laurels. They reached Antioch at the end of the year, and had, during their stay in that metropolis of Oriental vice and luxury, a novel experience. A great earthquake shook the city, and even the house in which the Emperor lodged. He was forced to make his escape by the window. The accounts of their later movements are meagre, and we can only imagine Plotina passing with wonder through the strange spectacles of western Asia. During the spring and summer an indecisive campaign was waged against the Parthians, and Trajan returned to Antioch for the winter. In the spring of the year 116 the Emperor set out again for Mesopotamia. He passed down the Euphrates, took the Parthian capital, sailed on the Persian Gulf, and even directed a longing eye over the ocean in the direction of India. The spirit of Alexander breathed in him as he trod this theatre of the historic conquerors, but the burden of age and an increasing infirmity put a reluctant limit to his ambition. He had, in fact, passed the range of his powers, and distended too far the frontier of the Empire. In the following year he became weaker, and the Eastern tribes advanced with spirit. Leaving the task to his generals, the Emperor turned towards Italy. How far Plotina had accompanied her husband on these remote journeys we are not informed. It would not be surprising, or out of harmony with a general custom of the time, if she covered the whole, or the greater part, of the territory with him. However that may be, we find her with Trajan and Hadrian at Antioch once more in the course of the year 117. Trajan was seriously ill, and had to abandon all hope of settling the Eastern question. He maintained the troops at the frontier, left Hadrian at Antioch as legate of the East, and slowly and sadly moved towards Europe. His tall frame was bent with age, his hair was white, his limbs made heavy with dropsy and numbed with incipient paralysis. When they arrived at Selinus, a small town on a precipitous rock of the Cilician coast, only a few hundred miles from Edessa, his illness increased, and he died, in the month of August, 117, in the sixty-third year of his age.