The Unwilling Vestal by Edward Lucas White

AURELIUS returned from Syria with his victorious army in the nine hundred and twenty-ninth year of Rome, 176 of our era, ten years after the great pestilence. He had merely crushed a local rebellion, but a vast coalition of nomadic Arab tribes of the desert had been allied with the rebels, and to the Romans it seemed that their Emperor had won a great victory in a mighty campaign. Aurelius humored their mood, and with good judgment, for they needed all the encouragement possible. He arranged to have his return celebrated by shows of all kinds, theatrical performances, fights of gladiators, beast fights, horse-races uncountable and above all, by that thrilling procession of a victor and his armed soldiers through the city along the Sacred Street, up to the great temple on the Capitol, which was the highest honor an army and a commander could receive at the hands of the Roman government, which signalized a notable victory over notable odds, which was called a triumph.

Of triumphs Rome had seen fewer than three hundred in more than nine hundred years. Not one of the three hundred had been as magnificent as the triumph of Aurelius.