CHAPTER I.
THE EDUCATION OF AN EMPEROR.
The life of the noblest of Pagan Emperors may well follow that of the noblest of Pagan slaves. Their glory shines the purer and brighter from the midst of a corrupt and deplorable society. Epictetus showed that a Phrygian slave could live a life of the loftiest exaltation; Aurelius proved that a Roman Emperor could live a life of the deepest humility. The one--a foreigner, feeble, deformed, ignorant, born in squalor, bred in degradation, the despised chattel of a despicable freedman, surrounded by every depressing, ignoble, and pitiable circumstance of life--showed how one who seemed born to be a wretch could win noble happiness and immortal memory; the other--a Roman, a patrician, strong, of heavenly beauty, of noble ancestors, almost born to the purple, the favourite of Emperors, the greatest conquerer, the greatest philosopher, the greatest ruler of his time-proved for ever that it is possible to be virtuous, and tender, and holy, and contented in the midst of sadness, even on an irresponsible and imperial throne. Strange that, of the two, the Emperor is even sweeter, more simple, more admirable, more humbly and touchingly resigned, than the slave. In him, Stoicism loses all its haughty self-assertion, all its impracticable paradox, for a manly melancholy which at once troubles and charms the heart. "It seems," says M. Martha, "that in him the philosophy of heathendom grows less proud, draws nearer and nearer to a Christianity which it ignored or which it despised, and is ready to fling itself into the arms of the 'Unknown God.' In the sad Meditations of Aurelius we find a pure serenity, sweetness, and docility to the commands of God, which before him were unknown, and which Christian grace has alone surpassed. If he has not yet attained to charity in all that fulness of meaning which Christianity has given to the word he has already gained its unction, and one cannot read his book, unique in the history of Pagan philosophy, without thinking of the sadness of Pascal and the gentleness of Fénélon. We must pause before this soul, so lofty and so pure, to contemplate ancient virtue in its softest brilliancy, to see the moral delicacy to which profane doctrines have attained--how they laid down their pride, and how penetrating a grace they have found in their new simplicity. To make the example yet more striking, Providence, which, according to the Stoics, does nothing by chance, determined that the example of these simple virtues should bloom in the midst of all human grandeur--that charity should be taught by the successor of blood stained Caesars, and humbleness of heart by an Emperor."
Aurelius has always exercised a powerful fascination over the minds of eminent men "If you set aside, for a moment, the contemplation of the Christian verities," says the eloquent and thoughtful Montesquieu, "search throughout all nature, and you will not find a grander object than the Antonines.... One feels a secret pleasure in speaking of this Emperor; one cannot read his life without a softening feeling of emotion. He produces such an effect upon our minds that we think better of ourselves, because he inspires us with a better opinion of mankind." "It is more delightful," says the great historian Niebuhr, "to speak of Marcus Aurelius than of any man in history; for if there is any sublime human virtue it is his. He was certainly the noblest character of his time, and I know no other man who combined such unaffected kindness, mildness, and humility, with such conscientiousness and severity towards himself. We possess innumerable busts of him, for every Roman of his time was anxious to possess his portrait, and if there is anywhere an expression of virtue it is in the heavenly features of Marcus Aurelius."
Marcus Aurelius was born on April 26, A.D. 121. His more correct designation would be Marcus Antoninus, but since he bore several different names at different periods of his life, and since at that age nothing was more common than a change of designation, it is hardly worth while to alter the name by which he is most popularly recognised. His father, Annius Verus, who died in his Praetorship, drew his blood from a line of illustrious men who claimed descent from Numa, the second King of Rome. His mother, Domitia Calvilla, was also a lady of consular and kingly race. The character of both seems to have been worthy of their high dignity. Of his father he can have known little, since Annius died when Aurelius was a mere infant; but in his Meditations he has left us a grateful memorial of both his parents. He says that from his grandfather he learned (or, might have learned) good morals and the government of his temper; from the reputation and remembrance of his father, modesty and manliness; from his mother, piety, and beneficence, and abstinence not only from evil deeds, but even from evil thoughts; and, further, simplicity of life far removed from the habits of the rich.
The childhood and boyhood of Aurelius fell during the reign of Hadrian. The times were better than those which we have contemplated in the reigns of the Caesars. After the suicide of Nero and the brief reigns of Galba and Otho, the Roman world had breathed more freely for a time under the rough good humour of Vespasian and the philosophic virtue of Titus. The reign of Domitian, indeed, who succeeded his brother Titus, was scarcely less terrible and infamous than that of Caius or of Nero; but that prince, shortly before his murder, had dreamt that a golden neck had grown out of his own, and interpreted the dream to indicate that a better race of princes should follow him. The dream was fulfilled. Whatever may have been their other faults, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, were wise and kind-hearted rulers; Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius were among the very gentlest and noblest sovereigns whom the world has ever seen.
Hadrian, though an able, indefatigable, and, on the whole, beneficial Emperor, was a man whose character was stained with serious faults. It is, however, greatly to his honour that he recognized in Aurelius, at the early age of six years, the germs of those extraordinary virtues which afterwards blessed the empire and elevated the sentiments of mankind. "Hadrian's bad and sinful habits left him," says Niebuhr, "when he gazed on the sweetness of that innocent child. Playing on the boy's paternal name of Verus, he called him Verissimus, 'the most true.'" It is interesting to find that this trait of character was so early developed in one who thought that all men "should speak as they think, with an accent of heroic verity."
Toward the end of his long reign, worn out with disease and weariness, Hadrian, being childless, had adopted as his son L. Ceionius Commodus, a man who had few recommendations but his personal beauty. Upon his death, which took place a year afterwards, Hadrian, assembling the senators round his sick bed, adopted and presented to them as their future Emperor Arrius Antoninus, better known by the surname of Pius, which he won by his gratitude to the memory of his predecessor. Had Aurelius been older--he was then but seventeen--it is known that Hadrian would have chosen him, and not Antoninus, for his heir. The latter, indeed, who was then fifty-two years old, was only selected on the express condition that he should in turn adopt both Marcus Aurelius and the son of the deceased Ceionius. Thus, at the age of seventeen, Aurelius, who, even from his infancy, had been loaded with conspicuous distinctions, saw himself the acknowledged heir to the empire of the world.
We are happily able, mainly from his own writings, to give some sketch of the influences and the education which had formed him for this exalted station.