"Daphne, by Orontes," a suburb of Antioch,
was infamous for its seductions; and _Daphnic luxury_ had become
proverbial for expressing an excess of voluptuousness, such as other
places could not rival by mere defect of means, and preparations elaborate
enough to sustain it in all its varieties of mode, or to conceal it from
public notice. In the very purlieus of this great nest, or sty of
sensuality, within sight and touch of its pollutions, did he keep his army
fiercely reined up, daring and defying them, as it were, to taste of the
banquet whose very odor they inhaled.
Thus provided with the means, and improved instruments, for executing his
purposes, he broke out into open rebellion; and, though hostile to the
_principatus_, or personal supremacy of one man, he did not feel his
republican purism at all wounded by the style and title of _Imperator_,--
that being a military term, and a mere titular honor, which had co-existed
with the severest forms of republicanism. _Imperator_, then, he was
saluted and proclaimed; and doubtless the writer of the warning letter
from Syria would now declare that the sequel had justified the fears which
Marcus had thought so unbecoming to a Roman emperor.
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