Note 003
About the year 186 M. de Tillemont is miserably
embarrassed with a passage of Dion, in which the empress
Faustina, who died in the year 175, is introduced as having
contributed to the marriage of Severus and Julia (1. lxxiv.
p. 1243). The learned compiler forgot, that Dion is
relating, not a real fact, but a dream of Severus; and
dreams are circumscribed to no limits of time or space.
Did M. de Tillemont imagine that marriages were consumated
in the temple of Venus at Rome.
Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iii. p. 389, Note 6.
Note to Chapter 6 of DECLINE & FALL by Gibbon