He was brought up in the house of his grandfather, a man who had been three times consul. He makes it a matter of congratulation, and thankfulness to the gods, that he had not been sent to any public school, where he would have run the risk of being tainted by that frightful corruption into which, for many years, the Roman youth had fallen. He expresses a sense of obligation to his great-grandfather for having supplied him with good teachers at home, and for the conviction that on such things a man should spend liberally. There was nothing jealous, barren, or illiberal, in the training he received. He was fond of boxing, wrestling, running; he was an admirable player at ball, and he was fond of the perilous excitement of hunting the wild boar. Thus, his healthy sports, his serious studies, his moral instruction, his public dignities and duties, all contributed to form his character in a beautiful and manly mould. There are, however, three respects in which his education seems especially worthy of notice;--I mean the diligence, the gratitude, and the hardiness in which he was encouraged by others, and which he practised with all the ardour of generous conviction.
1. In the best sense of the word, Aurelius was diligent. He alludes more than once in his Meditations to the inestimable value of time, and to his ardent desire to gain more leisure for intellectual pursuits. He flung himself with his usual undeviating stedfastness of purpose into every branch of study, and though he deliberately abandoned rhetoric, he toiled hard at philosophy, at the discipline of arms, at the administration of business, and at the difficult study of Roman jurisprudence. One of the acquisitions for which he expresses gratitude to his tutor Rusticus, is that of reading carefully, and not being satisfied with the superficial understanding of a book. In fact, so strenuous was his labour, and so great his abstemiousness, that his health suffered by the combination of the two.
2. His opening remarks show that he remembered all his teachers--even the most insignificant--with sincere gratitude. He regarded each one of them as a man from whom something could be learnt, and from whom he actually did learn that something. Hence the honourable respect--a respect as honourable to himself as to them--which he paid to Fronto, to Rusticus, to Julius Proculus, and others whom his noble and conscientious gratitude raised to the highest dignities of the State. He even thanks the gods that "he made haste to place those who brought him up in the station of honour which they seemed to desire, without putting them off with mere hopes of his doing it some time after, because they were then still young." He was far the superior of these men, not only socially but even morally and intellectually; yet from the height of his exalted rank and character he delighted to associate with them on the most friendly terms, and to treat them, even till his death, with affection and honour, to place their likenesses among his household gods, and visit their sepulchres with wreaths and victims.
3. His hardiness and self-denial were perhaps still more remarkable. I wish that those boys of our day, who think it undignified to travel second-class, who dress in the extreme of fashion, wear roses in their buttonholes, and spend upon ices and strawberries what would maintain a poor man for a year, would learn how infinitely more noble was the abstinence of this young Roman, who though born in the midst of splendour and luxury, learnt from the first to loathe the petty vice of gluttony, and to despise the unmanliness of self-indulgence. Very early in life he joined the glorious fellowship of those who esteem it not only a duty but a pleasure
"To scorn delights, and live laborious days,"
and had learnt "endurance of labour, and to want little, and to work with his own hands." In his eleventh year he became acquainted with Diognetus, who first introduced him to the Stoic philosophy, and in his twelfth year he assumed the Stoic dress. This philosophy taught him "to prefer a plank bed and skin, and whatever else of the kind belongs to the Grecian discipline." It is said that "the skin" was a concession to the entreaties of his mother, and that the young philosopher himself would have chosen to sleep on the bare boards or on the ground. Yet he acted thus without self-assertion and without ostentation. His friends found him always cheerful; and his calm features,--in which a dignity and thoughtfulness of spirit contrasted with the bloom and beauty of a pure and honourable boyhood,--were never overshadowed with ill-temper or with gloom.
The guardians of Marcus Aurelius had gathered around him all the most distinguished literary teachers of the age. Never had a prince a greater number of eminent instructors; never were any teachers made happy by a more grateful, a more humble, a more blameless, a more truly royal and glorious pupil. Long years after his education had ceased, during his campaign among the Quadi, he wrote a sketch of what he owed to them. This sketch forms the first book of his Meditations, and is characterised throughout by the most unaffected simplicity and modesty.
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius were in fact his private diary, they are a noble soliloquy with his own heart, an honest examination of his own conscience; there is not the slightest trace of their having been intended for any eye but his own. In them he was acting on the principle of St. Augustine: "Go up into the tribunal of thy conscience, and set thyself before thyself." He was ever bearing about--
"A silent court of justice in himself,
Himself the judge and jury, and himself
The prisoner at the bar."
And writing amid all the cares and distractions of a war which he detested, he averted his eyes from the manifold wearinesses which daily vexed his soul, and calmly sat down to meditate on all the great qualities which he had observed, and all the good lessons that he might have learnt from those who had instructed his boyhood, and surrounded his manly years.