The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire · ¶65

The birth of Antonina was ignoble; she descended from a family of charioteers; and her chastity has been stained with the foulest reproach. Yet she reigned with long and absolute power over the mind of her illustrious husband; and if Antonina disdained the merit of conjugal fidelity, she expressed a manly friendship to Belisarius, whom she accompanied with undaunted resolution in all the hardships and dangers of a military life.

Edward Gibbon · Project Gutenberg #734 (Milman edition) — public domain
Source edition
Passage preview. Read in context for the complete text, notes and references.