Here begin the stories that have gathered about the memory of the younger Faustina, and have persuaded many a writer that, as one of the authorities says, she became a second Messalina. If we are to believe the “Augustan History,” she behaved with the most abominable license throughout her whole married life. Four Roman nobles are specifically named as notorious lovers of the Empress, and she is charged with general license. One of the four was named Tertullus, and it is said that one day, when Marcus was in the theatre, an actor made flagrant reference to this liaison. Asked for the name of a certain lover, he said three times (_ter_), “Tullus, Tullus, Tullus.” It is added that Marcus--who might very well miss a point in the theatre, as he read and wrote letters there--was quite aware of the liaison, because he one day surprised Faustina at breakfast with Tertullus. The Empress is further charged with adultery with the voluptuous colleague of her husband, and with wantoning among actors, gladiators, sailors, and others of the baser sort. The more sober writers on Faustina have generally been unwilling to admit this debauchery. Duruy rejects the stories altogether, Merivale recommends reserve, and Renan thinks that “careful research has reduced to very small proportions the accusations which scandal was pleased to bring against the wife of Marcus Aurelius.” It seems to me that we can only come to the same conclusion as we did in regard to Messalina; we must regard particular legends with reserve, but must conclude that the general opinion of Faustina at the time, which the stories embody, must have had a serious basis. Some of the stories put on record by Capitolinus in the “Augustan History” are palpably false. One runs that she confessed to Marcus her passion for a certain gladiator, and that Marcus was directed by the Chaldæan sages, whom he consulted, to kill the man and bathe the Empress in his blood. Her passion was cured, but her next child was the brutal Commodus. This story is so gross--I do not reproduce all the details--that the writer does not insist on it, but he continues: “Still, as her conduct with the gladiators is well known, Commodus probably was the son of a gladiator.” Now the tutor of the princes, Fronto, remarks in one of his letters, and the surviving busts bear him out, that Commodus had a striking likeness to Marcus Aurelius. I may add that Commodus was born in the year of the Emperor’s accession, when such conduct is incredible. [Illustration: FAUSTINA THE YOUNGER BUST (REPUTED) IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM]